Naruto of the Hidden Leaf Village
by MQZ
Summary: A child who is cast out from the rest as different, for a reason he does not know. One who is looked down upon by the others. And a boy who strives to prove them all wrong.
1. The Beginning

**I don't own Naruto or any of the characters used in here. They are all from the anime series.**

**Reviews are much appreciated, as this is my first fan fiction.**

"Get out of here!"

"Demon scum!"

"Stay away from our children!"

"Why don't you just die, that way you can join all the other demons!"

Running as swiftly as he could through the villagers, with tears streaming down his face, the young blonde boy did his best to ignore the piercing glares of absolute hatred that were being thrown in his direction. One day… He was going to show them that he wasn't a demon. One day… they would respect him! One day…

"I'm going to be Hokage! Then you'll all have to respect me! You'll see!"

He couldn't go on, and broke down, sobs racking his body as he ran, towards the place that had been his only refuge for as long as he could remember. Climbing onto the all too familiar wooden swing, he sat alone, watching the other children his age play with each other, or laugh with their parents.

'_They all look so happy,'_ he thought sadly to himself.

'_They have no idea what it's like to be me, to have no friends, and no parents… No home…'_

Or maybe some did… Looking up, he heard somebody else crying, and saw a rather overweight-looking child, dressed in green, and with peculiar swirl marks on his cheeks. From what Naruto could see, he had been rejected as well by the other kids in a game of ninja.

'_This is my chance… I may actually be able to make a friend.'_

Hearing footsteps behind him, the large child was having similar thoughts.

'_Maybe somebody actually wants to know me for something other than my size?'_

However, turning around, he saw that it was a blonde, dressed in bright orange. And his hopes dropped.

'_Oh… its him. My mummy and daddy never said anything to me about him, and they seemed pretty upset for some reason, but Sakura's mummy said to stay away from him because he's a bad boy!'_

After approaching the boy slowly, he straightened up, which caught the other boy's attention. Turning around to face him, Naruto decided that it was best if he spoke first.

"Hi I'm Naruto! Do you want to play?" asked Naruto with a grin, sure that this boy would want to hang out with him.

"Im Chouji. But there is no way I'm playing with you! All the adults say that you're a bad boy, and we can't be near you!"

The reaction that the blonde gave back wasn't the one he'd expected. An even wider grin, as if forced, plastered itself onto the boy's face, and a happy voice replied,

"Haha… no big deal, I was just wondering that's all! Anyway, cya around!"

Shrugging, Chouji turned around and pulled out a packet of chips, munching on them to feed his hunger, both physical hunger, and a yearning for a true friend. Feeling slightly bad about how he'd treated the other child, he turned to offer him some. But Naruto had already disappeared.

'_I'm still alone…'_

He was back at his special spot by the tree, sitting on the swing, once again staring at all the families swarming around the ninja academy in front of him. Children showing off new taijutsu techniques that they'd learnt, others throwing shuriken and kunai at targets with their friends. The familiar feeling of loneliness returned, he didn't have anyone like that to show off to, and nobody to help him practice…

"_Hah… not like I have anything to show off too, even if my parents weren't dead. I wonder what they'd think if they saw me now…" _he thought bitterly to himself.

He needed a place to think, where he could be spared the sight of the things he didn't have, right in front of his face. And aside from his place on the swing, there was only one spot which could provide this kind of comfort.

"Ok, off to the Hokage monument I guess," he said out loud. For a moment, he stood still, questioning his own sanity and talking to himself, but shrugged it off. "Not like anybody else is here to listen anyway."

Little did he know, that a small, timid looking dark blue-hard girl with white eyes, was cautiously watching him from behind a tree.

"Naruto…" she whispered to herself.

'_You don't have to always be alone…'_

On top of the Hokage monument, Naruto sat on the Fourth Hokage's face. There wasn't a particular reason for it, it just seemed more appealing than the creepy looking carved faces of the 1st and 2nd Hokages. And the 3rd… urgh… the thought of the old man being young… How could he possibly sit on that? But wondering through his thoughts for the reason for his sitting location only distracted him for a moment from his current situation. According to what he'd been told by some of the more tolerant villagers, he was turning 10 in a few days. Any other child would have been delighted that they were growing up. But as for Naruto…

As the blonde child thought about his upcoming birthday, he visibly sagged, head hanging down, and began to cry. Crying because he had no parents to celebrate with. Crying because the villagers would be celebrating the nine tailed fox demon's defeat, and cursing his birth. Crying, because in the ten years that he had been alive, nothing had changed. He was still despised by almost everybody, children included, for some unknown reason. Was it because he was an orphan? No… he alone had been kicked out of the orphanage once he'd turned three, whilst he'd met children as old as eight or nine years old still living there.

"Why... Why does everybody hate me so much?"

He looked up to the sky, through a vision blurred by tears. At that moment, Naruto felt as if he could die, and he knew that if he vanished, none of the villagers would care, in fact, they would celebrate. For a split second, he was tempted to push off the Fourth Hokage's face in the rock, and fall to the ground below…

But his body suddenly froze, his mind went crazy, reeling with images of the few who had been kind and cared for him. Teuchi, the guy who'd always given him free ramen whenever he didn't have the money to pay for it. The old man Hokage, who'd provided him with a living space. And that weird white eyed girl he'd seen once in a while, who hadn't come over to talk to him, but had never teased or mocked him. Finally, he remembered his dream.

'_To become Hokage! That is my dream!'_

Clenching his tiny hands into fists, Naruto backpedalled as fast as he could away from the edge of the Hokage monument…

Having calmed down a little, Naruto stood up, and looked at Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves from the Hokage monument.

"I never go back on my word! And that's my ninja way! You all hear that? My name's Naruto Uzumaki, and before you know it, I'll be the greatest Hokage the leaf village ever had!" he shouted out. With a grin, a real one, instead of the mask he usually had to wear, he remembered that his time at the ninja academy was going to begin soon, just one day after his tenth birthday. It was his first step to becoming a ninja of the leaf village at last, and his first step to earning the village's respect. Little did Naruto know, that he was being observed from afar.

Gazing into the crystal ball, the Third Hokage smiled to himself.

"Seems like the boy has, at least for the time being, managed to secure himself a reason to go on. And quite a reasonable one at that. Unlike that Uchiha child…"

Frowning, he moved his left hand, and the crystal ball instantly flickered, solidifying the image to focus on Sasuke Uchiha. A pale skinned child, with black hair, dressed in dark blue clothing and sporting the symbol of the Uchiha clan on his back. In his eyes, Sarutobi could see fear and anger, but most prominent of all, a thirst for blood. His facial emotion was no different, mouth set in a taut line, giving his face a look that said _"I am constantly pissed off."_

Laughing slightly to himself, the Third Hokage couldn't help but compare this character to Naruto, and how their personalities were completely different, despite both having no parents.

"Yes… Definitely a good thing that Naruto hasn't turned out to be like him."

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	2. The First Day

**Disclaimer has already been stated in the previous chapter. It will not be repeated :)**

Naruto could hardly believe that the day had come so quickly. The day which he began training at the Ninja academy. Whilst one would think that the birthday would have been more significant, Naruto's had not been very different. He'd received a kunai and shuriken set from the old man with the funny white hat, and an extra large bowl of ramen for free, courtesy of Teuchi. Apart from those two contributions, his day had been no different, enduring the glares of the villagers. So no, it was not a special day to him.

This academy on the other hand, was a stepping stone to achieving his dream! From what the old man had told him, the Hokage title was given to the best Ninja in the village, and to do that, he had to graduate, so he could become a genin. Naruto was so excited that he barely had breakfast, having one cup of instant ramen instead of seven, only half a glass of milk rather than the full carton. His orange jumpsuit was now dry, he'd spent three hours the previous day washing it, making sure it looked completely clean. Slipping into it now, he dashed out the door, not bothering to lock it. First, the ninja academy was worth way more than his shabby little apartment. And second, the lock never seemed to keep a few villagers from breaking in and trashing his home.

The second thought stayed in his mind, and as he raced towards the academy, he remembered the first time it had happened…

He had been three at the time, and the nice old man was walking him back to the apartment he'd recently given to Naruto.

"Now Naruto, make sure that you keep the place clean. No matter what price I've tried to offer the local cleaners, they absolutely refused to do so, so it is up to you to make sure it doesn't get messy, understood?"

"Ok old man, no problem."

Upon arriving to the apartment however, Sarutobi's eyes had narrowed considerably, and he had begun shaking. The walls, previously clean, now had dents scattered all over them, smudges of dirt clinging to their surfaces, and bits of rubbish had been stuck to various parts of the room. The bed had been destroyed, splinters littering the floor around it, and the mattress torn to pieces. Pieces of glass lay on the ground, showing the only remains of the light…

He shuddered as he recalled the terrifying look of anger on the old man's face, an expression that he'd never seen before, not even that time when the council had tried to overthrow his position. Having been only three years old at the time, and without a place to stay, Naruto hadn't really cared. At the time, he'd been crying with joy that he finally had a home, regardless of its state, and had spent the following few days doing his best to clean it, with the Hokage's help. But one day… he'd returned home after playing with his wooden kunai, only to find…

Naruto's thoughts were abruptly cut off when his mind was forcefully brought back to the present, as he ran straight into somebody who was standing in front of the academy gates.

"Hehe… sorry about that…" he began to apologise, but was cut off by the look that he was given. The person he'd crashed into was now staring at him with hatred, disgust, and anger.

"What's a demon like you doing here? They would never let you become a ninja, not after what YOU did to our village!"

Naruto heard the words, and for a moment, that feeling that he always had when he sat alone on the swing returned to him. But shaking his head, he forced it all down, and smiled. Ignoring the man who was still shouting at him, he raced into the academy room, entering with a triumphant yell.

"Oh yea! My first step to becoming Hokage! And nobody's going to stand in my way!"

The white eyed girl, with white eyes, and dark blue hair, was simply sitting on her own at the edge of a line of desks. It wasn't as if the other children didn't like her, just that her friends, Sakura and Ino, seemed to find Sasuke a bit more interesting than her. She couldn't really see what they saw in the Uchiha. He may have been skilled as an academy ninja student, but that was only the image on the surface. Hinata had always been good with looking at somebody's personality, and the one that the dark haired boy seemed to radiate was not a friendly one. Unlike the blonde boy she'd been observing for the last few weeks…

A pink tint appeared in her cheeks, even as she thought about him. Unlike the others, she had been able to see past the smile that he covered himself with, past the illusions of a carefree child that he attempted to spin. She'd seen him cry, grieving the fact that he was alone. She'd seen him devastated when turned down by the other children. And slowly, inevitably, Hinata had formed a bond with him, although he was not aware of it.

It was most likely, she thought, that the bond had branched from the lack of support and attention her family gave her…

A loud yell, with 'Hokage' somewhere in the mix, snapped her out of her thoughts. Hinata felt her face heating up as she saw the very blonde she'd been thinking about, running into the room.

'_He's here… They let him into the academy… I'm glad he's been given a chance to - OH NO he's coming over here!'_

Rapidly looking around for some place of refuge, she found none, and suddenly found herself face to face with the boy.

"Hi there! I'm Naruto Uzumaki. What's up with all those girls over there?" he asked, pointing to the crowd gathered in the far corner of the room.

Keeping her eyes down to try and hide her flushed face, and poking her fingers together (which she suddenly found to be very interesting) she managed to stutter out a reply.

"Um… h-hello. My um… my name is H-hinata Hyuuga… I think those p-people are there because… because of Sasuke."

Naruto seemed a bit upset at her response, but shook it off.

"Who's Sasuke?"

At this point, Hinata was doing everything she could to not faint on the spot, and continued her 'ums' and poking together her index fingers. Luckily, she was saved by a chorus from the crowded corner.

"You don't know who Sasuke is?" they all said in unison.

The crowd parted to reveal the dark haired Uchiha child.

"Look at him, isn't he just the hottest looking guy?" Sakura spoke up.

"Yea! Just look at the way he stands, the things he wears!" shouted Ino.

"And to top it all off… HE'S THE BEST NINJA IN THE ACADEMY OF OUR YEAR!" the whole group of fan girls shouted together. Not a moment after saying this, they were instantly back to crowding Sasuke, giggling, asking him out, begging for attention. Naruto was pouting.

"Hmph, I don't see what's so special about him! What's he got that I don't have Hinata?"

"Um… nothing Naruto…"

'_I wish I could tell him…"_

Once again, her face temperature rose rapidly, and her vision started to become blurry.

"Hinata, you ok? You seem a bit feverish, your face is all red!" Naruto said, leaning in closer to make sure she was alright. The only response he got was a thud, as the Hyuuga girl finally lost consciousness and fainted.

"Oh comeon… I'm not that bad looking!"

His tantrum and complaining however, was cut short as another person walked in through the door.

"You there, sit down and stop complaining about whatever it is! As for all of you…" the man said, pointing at the people stacking up around Sasuke, "get back into your seats!"

"And if we don't?" questioned one of the fan girls.

"Then I'll simply have to ask the other instructors to find a fitting punishment for you won't I?"

The thought running through everybody's head was, _'Other instructors? But that means…'_

As if he'd read their thoughts through their expression, the man nodded.

"Yes, that's right. Call me Iruka-sensei. I'm going to be your teacher for your time at the academy. Now get in your seats!"

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	3. Class Sucks!

Naruto, having perked up at the word 'sensei,' looked at the man. He had a short ponytail, with dark brown hair, and tanned skin. There was a mysterious scar across the bridge of his nose, and he wasn't a particularly tall figure, probably of average height. But what really caught Naruto's attention was the headband, the metal glinting as it caught the sunlight filtering through the window.

"Woah! You're a ninja!"

The entire class burst out laughing, except Hinata (who at this point had recovered), and another person with short black hair in a ponytail, who appeared to be asleep.

"Well duh! Of course he's a ninja, loser! Why else would he be teaching us?"

The blonde looked around to find the source of the voice… and settled his gaze straight at Sasuke, who sat there with an arrogant smirk on his face.

"Shut it Sasuke!" With that, the two proceeded to glare at each other, neither one willing to give.

"AHEM!"

Both children instantly stopped and faced Iruka, who now wore an annoyed expression.

"As I was about to explain to you Naruto, yes, I am a ninja. I'm of Chuunin Rank, the second ninja rank. My job here, is to instruct all of you in theory and some practical aspects of ninja techniques, history, and many other things. When you pass the final academy test, then you are eligible to become genin, the lowest ninja rank. Understood?"

Seeing the rest of the class nodding their heads, he continued.

"However, I will not be instructing you in handling kunai and shuriken, or much taijutsu. My focus will be on basic ninjutsu, such as transformations and clones. But don't get ahead of yourselves now," he quickly said to the class, as he could see many becoming excited, clearly fired up by the prospect of learning how to use clones or transform.

"We'll start off simple, please take out your books, and get out a pencil or pen to take down notes on the history of the Hidden Leaf village."

A chorus of groans could be heard from all the ten and eleven year olds, as all of them but one reached for something to write on and write with. Iruka noticed this.

"Naruto, why haven't you taken out anything?"

"Well…" began the blonde, with a shameful and embarrassed expression.

"I don't… exactly… have any."

Once again, the class burst into laughter.

"Who doesn't have pen and paper, it's specifically requested at the top of the academy items list!"

"Yea, what a loser, he probably just forgot to check."

"Maybe he's so stupid, he doesn't know what a pen and paper are!"

With that last comment, Naruto snapped.

"Shut it! Just because I don't have 150 ryo to spend on a pen, and another 400 to spend on a pad of paper like you guys do!"

All the classmates sweat-dropped at this, as did Iruka, who decided to speak up.

"Um… Naruto… A pen and pad of paper together should cost no more than 5 ryo…"

The response he received certainly wasn't what he expected.

"Well I've been all over town, and I'm telling you, every single one of them has asked for at least 100 ryo just for a pen!"

"Oh…"

Whilst Naruto may have remained clueless, Iruka certainly knew the reason behind it. But despite the fact that the villagers hated Naruto for the nine tailed fox being sealed inside him, he never thought they'd go as far as charging him ridiculously large amounts for common everyday items! He made a mental note to talk to the Hokage later about this… Sarutobi definitely had to know what was going on.

"Well in that case, I'll arrange for you to get some suitable writing material. In the meantime, see if anybody's willing to lend you some."

A soft voice spoke up.

"Um… He c-can borrow some of my p-paper, and I um… I b-brought some extra pens too…" said Hinata, her face flaming red, as she held out the items in question to Naruto.

Naruto wasn't sure how to react. This was the first time that somebody other than the old man or Teuchi had given him anything, or shown any kindness.

'_Why is she being so nice to me? I thought at first that she didn't like me and didn't want to talk to me,'_ he thought, remembering to when she refused to look at him, and kept looking at other things.

'_But I guess she did want to talk to me…'_

He looked at Hinata, and took the paper.

"Thanks Hinata, you're the best!"

There was no response except for a slight increase in the red on her face as she sat down.

'_No response again? And why does she keep turning red like that? She doesn't look angry to me… I'm so confused.'_

Iruka spoke again.

"Now, please take down whatever notes you see fit to record. Bear in mind that there will be a test on this at the end of the week. The leaf village was founded by the first Hokage, who was known far and wide by his specialty in wood style jutsu. His mastery in wood style jutsu allowed him to gain an affinity with…"

Naruto couldn't listen any further, he hadn't come here to listen to this boring stuff! He'd come here to learn how to be a ninja! Looking around the room, he could see that he was not the only one, in fact, most people seemed to be bored out of their brains. The one from earlier, with the black ponytail was still asleep! In fact, only the pink haired girl known as Sakura seemed to be paying attention…

Taking a glance at Hinata, she seemed to have a blank look in her white eyes, as if she too found it boring, but didn't want to be impolite. Wait… white eyes? Dark blue hair?

'_!'_

"But you… you're… that… she…" was all he managed to get out, whilst Hinata turned towards him, confusion clearly etched on her face.

"You're that girl I saw the other day in the trees!"

The familiar red shade returned, and perspiration began pouring in streams down her head.

"Oh… well… um… I was j-just looking at some… ugh…"

Unable to come up with a sufficient excuse, she fainted again, face still burning.

To say the least, Iruka was a little ticked off when Naruto interrupted his lecture.

"What is it Naruto?"

"Um… I think Hinata fainted Iruka sensei. She might be sick with a fever or something, her face seems pretty red."

'_Clueless,'_ thought the teacher.

"Alright, I'll see to it that she is taken to the academy clinic. Class is almost finished anyway. Your taijutsu instructor should be arriving shortly, so please behave yourselves until then."

Without that, Iruka walked out, carrying an unconscious Hinata.


	4. The Rivalry

The taijutsu instructor had wasted no time in arranging the people into groups. As fate would have it, Naruto ended up in Sasuke's group, along with Sakura, the pink haired 'nerd,' from before. Giving the two people a glance, Naruto thought about what he knew of each of them. At the moment, he didn't really know much about their abilities in ninjutsu, genjutsu or taijutsu, but apparently Sasuke's skill in taijutsu and basic techniques (i.e. throwing shuriken) was unrivalled in the class. And since he was part of one of those strange clans that Naruto had heard about – the Uchihas wasn't it? – so he most likely had some sort of clan specialty ninjutsu. Taking a look at Sakura, he found nothing impressive. The girl didn't appear to be gifted in any way, her arms didn't look strong enough to even lift up one of the chairs in the room. She didn't seem to be of any of the village clans either, so there went any possibility of ninjutsu talent. And besides, judging from the fact that she was another Sasuke fan girl, it was highly unlikely that she'd be dedicated enough to teach herself anything.

Naruto was snapped out of his silent observation by the instructor's loud voice.

"Alright, we'll start off with the basic horse stance," he said, shifting into the position to demonstrate.

"This isn't for practical application, but is excellent for building up stamina in your legs, and basic strength. I want each of you to record the amount of time which you can hold this stance, this will be how you will be initially ranked. BEGIN!"

Everybody into the room slipped into the stance. The instructor was dashing around, correcting posture, feet positions, and making sure that they had the stance down perfectly. However, Sasuke and Naruto were oblivious to the activity around them. Since Sakura had collapsed from physical exhaustion a while ago (just as Naruto had expected), the two boys were involved in an intense stare-down, neither one willing to drop their stance and lose to the other. So the rest of the class slowly collapsed around them, whilst the two ignored the stabbing pains coming from their legs, each refusing to give in to the other. Minutes passed, and just as the instructors was about to call it a draw, Sasuke collapsed, an audible tearing sound coming from his leg muscles, his eyes widening with pain and disbelief. Not a moment later, Naruto followed suit, but his eyes held no pain, only triumph. Although the similar tearing sound from his limbs would suggest otherwise…

When Naruto finally opened his eyes, he found himself in a white room. And it was literally all white. The walls were painted white, the bedsheets and frames were white. Even the blinds on the windows were white. What was up with the white colour scheme?

'_Oh no… am I where I think I am?"_

"I'm in the hospital! Nooooo!" he yelled out loud.

Bad memories came rushing back to his head. The terrible 'nurses and doctors.' The jabbing with a seemingly excess number of needles with sedatives (although he'd been constantly assured that it was necessary for safety). The lack of food! The terrible taste of the food when it was given to him!

'_I've got to get out of here!'_

Jumping out of the bed, he whizzed out of the room, paying no attention to his legs, which had already been healed. He had always healed fast, whether it was from injuries received from the villagers beating him, or accidents (like that one time he fell off the swing). So it was no surprise to him that he was up and jumping already, he considered it perfectly normal.

Thinking about his injuries reminded him of the initial cause, and a foxy grin surfaced, as he remembered his victory.

'_Ha! I beat Sasuke! I beat the 'oh so perfect' Sasuke Uchiha! Take that you crazy bunch of fan girls!'_

Hearing a groan, Naruto stopped running, and looked into the room which it had come from. On the bed, was none other than the Uchiha, groaning pitifully, with huge signs of internal bleeding covering his legs.

'_Hehehe… And the poor sucker hasn't even recovered yet. So much for being the best.'_

Hearing a small laugh from the door, Sasuke whipped his head up, wincing at the pain the sudden movement brought. However, the pain was replaced by shock as he saw who was standing there.

'_No way! The doctors told me that his injuries were even worse than mine, and that they hadn't treated him for some reason. So how is he up already? Without any signs of pain?'_

Unable to find any practical solution to his question, Sasuke could only glare at the bright orange form move out of his view.

'_There's no way he could be stronger than me… I'll prove I'm stronger than he is!'_

Iruka was now on his way home, having just finished all the marking for the older class, one that had some promising ninja. They were all ready to graduate… even the previous dead last in the class, a young boy named Rock Lee. He smiled at the memories of Rock Lee attempting ninjutsu and genjutsu techniques, and being unable to concentrate any of his chakra. Most of the other instructors had deemed his as a failure… that was… before Might Guy took Lee under his wing. Nobody knew what he'd done to him… except convince Lee to speak constantly about the power of youth, and wear a similar green leotard… But Lee was now a taijutsu specialist, and second in the class to another student named Neji Hyuuga. It just showed how much things could change… how even the worst in the class could prove themselves to rise to the top.

Giving a weary sigh, Iruka put away the last of the work, and stood up, before his eyes bulged suddenly, and he collapsed. He'd seen Naruto, fully recovered, and racing around the rooftops as fast as some of the younger jounin.

'_How did he recover so quickly? Because of the demon sealed in Naruto, the rest of the village hates him, and I have no doubt that the doctors never treated him. So what did he do?'_

Slowly, he got up again, still thinking about Naruto's seemingly miraculous recovery. How did he…

'_!'_

"SINCE WHEN COULD AN ACADEMY STUDENT MOVE AT A JOUNIN SPEED?"

Naruto had been racing around the village at this speed for a few hours now, and he still was not feeling any strain, none of the burning he used to feel, no muscle cramping, nothing.

'_Probably from that horse stance exercise… my muscles were torn apart, must've been made stronger once they were healed. AWESOME!'_

His thoughts were cut short as he went flying into someone, who had conveniently been standing in his way.

"Urgh… HUH? What are you doing here?" Naruto instantly jumped up and pointed at Sasuke.

The Uchiha didn't exactly look as though he'd recovered, and was quite unsteady on his legs, bruises blotching along his upper and lower limbs. But he seemed to ignore it, and when he replied, there was no trace of pain.

"What do you think I'm doing here? To prove that I'm stronger than you! Do you honestly think that a loser like you could possibly be better than me? I'm from the Uchiha clan, the last of my kind! And who are you? Some orphan kid, who fluked out to even get into the academy!"

"What was that…"

"You heard me! So why don't we fight, right here and right now? Any jutsus are allowed, ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu."

"You're on!"

Sasuke wasted no time in beginning, almost hitting Naruto before the blonde had time to get ready. Flashing through the hand signs, he shouted out,

"Fire style – Fireball jutsu!"

A large ball of fire, fed by a continuous stream from Sasuke's mouth, raced towards Naruto, tearing up rocks and throwing clouds of dust everywhere as it headed towards its target. The flame hit the ground, and spread quickly, eager to consume anything in its path. But the blonde was already gone.

"TAKE THIS!"

The Uchiha child looked up to the source of the sound, an angry looking blonde with a leg drawn back, preparing to kick. With the condition his legs were in, he couldn't move away in time, and felt the full impact of Naruto's foot on his chest.

To be honest, Sasuke didn't know what had come over him when he'd rushed out of the hospital on unsteady legs and challenged the blonde boy. The only conscious thought running through his head at the time had been to show that kid, that he was stronger.

'_But that may not have been such a good idea…' _he thought, clutching his chest. Now that the adrenaline rush had passed, he could feel the strain from his leg muscles, and he fell to his knees, unable to stand any longer.

"Fire style – Fireball jutsu!"

Iruka looked up in shock. He'd been walking back to his house, ready to retire for the night, having informed the Hokage of Naruto's difficulty with his purchases, when he'd heard a familiar voice yell out the name of the jutsu. Seeing an orange flash a few hundred metres away, he instantly began racing towards the area. He arrived just in time to see Naruto plant his foot into Sasuke.

"What do you two think you're doing?"

The two children looked up guiltily at him, Sasuke wearing his normal expression, and Naruto with a look of shock. Clearly they'd been too absorbed in their own battle to notice him approaching.

"Both of you, get back to the hospital."

The Uchiha nodded, and trudged in the general direction of the hospital, shaking the Chuunin off when Iruka went to help him. The teacher turned to the blonde.

"You too Naruto."

"What for? They don't treat me anyway… And besides, I'm all healed!" came the reply, proven when the child raised the leg of his orange tracksuit pants, showing a perfectly healthy limb, no signs of muscle tearing or bruises in sight.

"Oh…" Iruka made a mental note to see the Hokage again, this time for the lack of treatment from the medic nin.

"In that case, if you're feeling up to it, how'd you like to join me for some ramen? I was planning to go out for dinner anyway." Iruka didn't know why he felt for the boy, but Naruto seemed to be similar to what he was like when his parents had died. Both had been alone, whilst the other people didn't seem to care. Whether that was the reason or not, the Chuunin felt an obligation to take care of the child.

"FREE RAMEN! How can I say no? Hahaaa, this has got to be my lucky day! First I beat Sasuke, then I get a free meal! Trust me Iruka-sensei you're not going to regret this!"

"This ramen is great as always!" said Naruto, as he happily slurped down the noodles at an alarming rate. "Gotta keep up my strength for all my ninja training, haha!"

Only the man serving the ramen seemed unfazed by his eating habits, whilst the rest of the customers were twitching, falling to the floor, or sitting with their eyes and mouths wide open.

"Naruto, are you sure it's healthy for you to eat that quickly?"

"Well.., it hasn't done any harm, so it must be fine!"

Iruka could only stare as the pile of bowls grew, the ceramic objects seemingly appearing out of thin air. 2 bowls… 4 bowls… 6 bowls… His count of the ramen bowl was interrupted when he heard a sharp gasp from somewhere to his left.

Hinata had been quietly eating her ramen, when he'd arrived. She usually ate here, although normally a little earlier, if anything, to escape her father. She found the strict rules and multiple glares from the rest of the Hyuugas unbearable whilst she ate at home, and often sought out other places to eat as a form a refuge. But her meal was not to be normal tonight…

"This ramen is great as always!"

'_W-what?'_

Her meal lay forgotten, steam still rising up from the bowl as it sat on the table. The pale girl was trying desperately (and failing) to fight the heat that was working its way up to her cheeks.

'_He… he said as always… Does he often come here too? Oh my…'_

The thought that Naruto had always eaten here, and that he would possibly continue to do so in the future, whilst possibly running into her each time… She let out a gasp at the thought, and shook her head to desperately to clear it of the images associated with that train of thought… A blonde boy in bright orange clothing leaning closer, holding her hands…

Needless to say, the battle for consciousness was also lost. Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, of which she was not sure of, this caught Naruto's attention.

"Hinata! Didn't see you there! Do you eat here a lot as well? … Hinata?"

Hearing somebody calling her name repeatedly, her mind forced itself to return to the living, only to see the hyperactive child with his face only inches away from her.

'_Don't faint don't faint don't faint don't faint…'_

"Are you ok?"

"Um… yes… I think…"

"You sure? I think you fell off your seat. Sure you didn't hit anything?"

'_He… h-he really c-cares if I-I'm hurt.'_

"Y-yes… I'm fine, really."

"Well if you say so."

Iruka had been watching the somewhat awkward exchange with a smile.

'_Hehe, Naruto, I'm about to do you a huge favour. Don't waste it.'_

"Well I'd best be off now," he announced, standing up. Handing a wad of notes to Naruto, he began to walk out of the ramen stand, leaving the blonde with a confused look on his face.

"Oh don't worry, those are just to cover the cost of the meal… And Hinata's too," he added, with a sly grin.

While the Hyuuga girl flushed a deep red, Naruto remained oblivious to the implied message, and simply nodded, pocketing the notes.

"So Hinata, do you want anything else to eat? Thanks to Iruka-sensei, I've got plenty!"

The dark blue-haired child was lying on her bed at the Hyuuga estate, a dreamy expression on her face, and a permanent red tint just below her eyes. Her mind was sent spinning as she recalled the events that had just occurred.

Naruto… He'd paid for her entire meal, even the bowl she'd already been eating. She couldn't remember much of what'd happened whilst she was eating – her entire focus had been on nodding, and remaining in a conscious state. But there was no way she could forget what happened next after the blonde boy had paid for her…

"_We should do this again sometime! What do you reckon Hinata?"_

And after that he had walked her home!

It was all Hinata could do to stop herself from letting out a squeal. Instead, she decided to sleep, letting her thoughts of Naruto run through her dreams.


	5. Knocked down, Up straight away!

Sarutobi sighed as he sat in his office, thinking about his next course of action to deal with a new issue that had sprung up. Iruka had recently paid two visits to him, each time informing the Hokage of various ways in which the villagers had been mistreating Naruto. To think that the shop owners would have the nerve to overcharge him for simple items like writing materials or training kunai sets. But what could he do? Only Hiashi Hyuuga in the council would listen to reason, without the same bias as the villagers or other council members, and even this could only be stretched to a certain extent. The majority of the council undoubtedly shared the same attitude as the villagers, and calling a council meeting to address this issue would achieve nothing… If he tried to call a public assembly, he would find similar results… With no options left, he began to think in a way he'd promised he'd never do…

'_What would Naruto do…'_

Instantly, the solution came to him, clear as the sun, and he wasted no time in rushing out of the building, to one of the more secluded areas in the village.

'_Hehehehehehe…'_

Unfortunately for Naruto, life was a lot more painful. He was playing a very familiar 'game', in a very familiar place, with very familiar angry villagers, being hit repeatedly by very familiar objects. The stones and various items left large bruises where they hit, some occasionally cutting the skin.

"Just like a game…" he whispered to himself.

"Just run and dodge… run and dodge… run and – OW!"

A particularly large stone had struck the back of his heal, tearing away a portion of his flesh. The blonde nearly collapsed from the pain, but past experiences had taught him that if he did so, the surrounding people would then proceed to use him as a piñata. Wooden bats and all. So he kept running, wincing occasionally as another projectile struck him, until finally, he reached the relative safety of the academy gates. Ignoring the looks that the chuunin in front of it shot him, Naruto continued to stagger forward, in an almost drunken manner. When he reached the door to Iruka's classroom, he collapsed, the loss of blood from multiple wounds on his body too much for him to handle.

The class was just beginning to assemble, with Iruka about to begin his lecture on chakra and its uses, when they were interrupted by a distinct 'thump' at the door. When nobody entered, Iruka stood up to open the door, while the classmates resumed their previous conversations with each other. This was quickly cut short by their sensei's sudden cry of shock.

"NARUTO?"

Various reactions occurred within the class. Hinata's head snapped up at the name, a light blush quickly returning to her face, and she was suddenly very attentive as to what Iruka was doing. The black haired ponytail child, who'd now introduced himself as Shikamaru, remained asleep, or appeared to. Sasuke simply closed his eyes, and resumed staring at the desk. Sakura and Ino, seeing their 'precious, amazing Sasuke's' actions, copied him, ignoring whatever could be happening at the doorway. The other fan girls in the class, not to be outdone by these two, followed suit. However, they quickly stopped when the cry of their teacher reached them.

"I need two people to get over here now! He has to go to the clinic immediately, no time to get him to the hospital."

Hinata was instantly up and racing towards the doorway. After a few seconds of silence, Shikamaru lazily opened one eye, peering at the commotion in the room, then the other. Sighing, he stood up with a great air of reluctance, and began slowly making his way to the doorway.

"Man… what a drag…"

Upon seeing Naruto's body on the floor however, he was quick to stiffen up in shock, and rushed to get a stretcher. The sight of the body was burned into his mind as he ran.

Naruto had been completely covered in blood. His clothes, even his outer jacket, were no longer orange, but stained dark red. Cuts were evident all over his clothing, and the cuts didn't stop at his clothes. Some of his wounds were still fresh, and a chunk of the back of his leg seemed to be missing. To top it all up, the parts of his body that weren't bleeding or missing flesh, sported dark blue and purple splotches, bruises.

When the normally lazy child returned, he found the teacher still shaking, although not with shock, an angry expression now showing. Hinata on the other hand had fainted, although traces of tears could be seen, some of the liquid still pooling at the corners of her eyes, and streak marks running down her face.

"Hinata, come on. We need your help to ensure that we can safely get Naruto to the clinic for treatment."

The small girl got up, and nodded, wiping her eyes with her hand as she did so. The three of them slowly lifted the blonde's body onto the stretcher, and walked slowly in the direction of the clinic. When they got there, they deposited him onto a bed, but found no medic nins around.

"Alright. I'll stay here and wait for them to return. I hate to do this to you guys again, but could the two of you inform the class to wait for the taijutsu instructor to arrive again? He should be there in an hour or so."

The pair nodded, and began walking back to the classroom. When they arrived, Sasuke instantly spoke up.

"What's happened to the loser now?"

Hinata instantly stiffened, and unconsciously, veins began to appear on her head, around her eyes, and lines appeared in the previously blank white eyes.

"He's been cut up all over his body, and bits of flesh are missing from his leg," she said to him, in a cold voice, free of the stutter she normally carried. While Sasuke kept his emotionless face on, seemingly unfazed, the reset of the class, Shikamaru included, were staring with gaping mouths and wide eyes. A common thought was being shared.

'_This person is Hinata?'_

Realising that she'd unintentionally activated the Byakugan, her family's kekkei genkai, she forced her anger to subside, and the whole class breathed a sigh of relief when the unnaturally large veins faded from view. However, her expression did not change, a glare, directed straight at the Uchiha, one that was maintained all the way to her seat.

'_Nobody here understands what Naruto has been through except for me! How dare that horrible Sasuke insult him!'_

The next hour or so was spent, more or less, in total silence. Sasuke was brooding the whole time, fingers folded over each other in front of him, elbows resting on the table, and face staring blankly into space. Hinata was busy trying to stop herself from reactivating the Byakugan, as well as attempting to hold back tears at what had been done to Naruto. Shikamaru wasn't sleeping, for once he seemed to be awake. He was thinking about the image of Naruto's body, burned into his mind.

'_Naruto hasn't done anything that could make him deserve this kind of treatment… What's going on…'_

Even the fan girls were surprisingly co-operative, just sitting there silently, occasionally stealing glances at the Uchiha, but not making their advances on him. The tension in the room was enormous, and only grew as the silence dragged on…

In another part of the village however, a certain individual was having the time of his life.

"I see why Naruto enjoys being so free! It feels just like when I was a genin myself! It's the perfect plan! First, I disguise myself as Naruto, then I go to all the places that Iruka mentioned have been mistreating him. No need for a tedious and useless meeting with the rest of the council…"

Had anybody been watching, they would have been extremely confused, as the person saying this, was none other than what appeared to be a blonde, dressed in an orange jacket and tracksuit pants, wearing his trademark goggles. Yet here he was, referring to 'Naruto' as a different person. Fortunately for Sarutobi, nobody was around to hear him. Smiling in what he thought to be a sneaky manner, the Hokage walked into one of the nearby restaurants, still keeping up the transformation jutsu. As soon as he placed a foot inside however, a large object, which seemed to be a hammer of some sort, came flying towards his head. Reflexively, he caught it, and snapped it off the handle. Gasps of shock could be heard from inside the dining area.

"He's gotten stronger! The demon is waking up! I told you it'd happen sooner or later! Quick, kill him now before it can reach full power!"

Smiling to himself in anticipation of the reaction of the restaurant owners, Sarutobi released the transformation jutsu. He closed his eyes and smiled as he heard the expected gasps coming from various people around him. What made him widen his eyes in shock however, were the things the villagers said next.

"The demon's managed to perfectly copy the image of the third Hokage! Get him!"

Speaking up at last, Sarutobi drew himself up to his full height.

"Excuse me?"

Had he not just been the target of an attack from his own village, he would have burst out laughing from their reaction. Instantly, the one who had called for the attack fell onto his knees and started apologizing as quickly as he could. The people who'd sprung up with rocks suddenly in their hands quickly hid them, and tried to start a conversation with each other, attempting to ignore the glare sent to them by the old man.

"Understand, that anybody I find treating Naruto in this manner will instantly be stripped of their ninja rank if they have one, and removed from the village if they aren't. This also applies to you," he said, giving a meaningful stare to a certain individual who he recognized as the owner of one of the larger shops in Konoha.

"Should I discover you attempting to overcharge him again, even by the slightest fraction of a ryo, believe me, you would not like to find out. I suggest you spread this message to all your 'friends' to ensure that they do not make the same mistake."

With that, he turned swiftly and slowly walked out of the building. Although half of him was seething with anger at the poor boy's treatment, the other half of him was to stop the laughter that threatened to overwhelm him at the memory of the villager's expressions.

'_Hehehe… despite all the paperwork and what not… it's good to be Hokage… very good…'_

The taijutsu instructor had walked into the room, and found the class dead silent. Not even the signs of whispered conversations were there, nobody was even attempting to communicate with anyone else. All the young ninja academy students jumped at the sound of him clearing his throat. But the shock broke the tension, and everybody was soon back to normal, Sasuke still staring at nothing, fan girls still staring at him, and Shikamaru still sleeping.

"Alright! I don't think we'll be doing an endurance exercise today because of what happened the last time we tried. This time we'll be going through individual techniques, kicks, punches, and parries. At this time, no combinations are to be used. Lets begin with a normal straight punch," He said, gesturing towards a line of wooden training dummies on the opposite wall.

Hinata had only felt more sore once in her life before, that being her introduction to her clan's 'Gentle Fist' style. The taijutsu workout she'd just been put through had strained her in terms of flexibility, and most of her muscles, especially those around her joints, were constantly cramping.

'_It's just like father says… I'm too weak… far below anyone else…' _she thought to herself miserably. From her observation, she'd been fourth in the class, but it was not such a great achievement when Naruto wasn't there, and considering that most of the girls were obsessive followers of Sasuke, reaching fourth was not hard to do.

'_Why can't I just be stronger like the others…' _she wished silently, a tear slipping down her cheek.

Iruka had been waiting for hours now in the clinic, when at last, a medic nin turned up.

"Where were you? Your break shouldn't have started before my class ended."

The only reply was "Urgent medic-nin matters…" from the girl, accompanied by a dirty glance at the blonde on the table. Iruka had had just about enough of the village hatred towards Naruto.

"I don't care what you think of this boy, but as one of the higher ranking chuunin in the village, I'm ordering you to treat him. Any hesitation will result in a report straight to the Hokage, who I'm sure will be happy to oblige to my requests to fire you."

Now directing the hateful glance at him, the medic-nin reluctantly obliged. However, after a brief examination, she looked up at him, annoyance clearly on her face.

"Is this some kind of joke? Why is he here? He's not even wounded!"

Of course, this sounded absolutely ludicrous to the Chuunin, and his anger began to rise, angry that the medic-nin was still trying to avoid giving Naruto any medical treatment. Seeing his murderous look, the ninja quickly clarified.

"No really, take a look for yourself. There's blood, but nothing underneath.

Looking closely at Naruto's body, Iruka saw that the medic-nin was right, even the chunk in his leg was back again.

'_In fact…'_ he thought as he helped the nin wipe away the blood.

'_Everything seems to be completely healed… the bruises are gone too…'_

Once the blood was gone, the medic-nin quickly left the room, apparently unwilling to spend another minute in the same room as the 'demon child.' Iruka didn't try to stop her, his attention was focussed on the boy in front of him, as the figure stirred, and eventually opened his eyes.

"Iruka… sensei? Am I… in the hospital again?"

Whilst rather shocked that the boy had managed to recover so quickly and seemed to be mentally fine as well, he managed to reply.

"Well… not really… but…"

He never got to finish as Naruto suddenly sat up quickly, a look of terror in his eyes, and his head began darting back and forth, looking for the exit.

"This place is like a hospital? AHHHHH!"

With that, the blonde dashed out the door, having finally located it, leaving a very surprised, wide-eyed Iruka sitting alone in the room.


	6. The Hyuugas

Hinata was still wallowing in her despairing thoughts, praying to some unseen being to become stronger, when she heard footsteps, quite a distance away from her, but approaching fast. Activating her Byakugan, she focused it into a shorter circular range, so that she'd be able to see further distances. However, when she caught sight of the thing in question, her eyes narrowed, then a few seconds later, widened in confusion. Finally, they squeezed shut, closing tightly together, a red tinge colouring her face as she tried to turn her back on the quickly approaching dust cloud. In the end it was of no use, the cloud drew near her, and slowed down, revealing none other than Naruto.

"Hey Hinata! It's kind of late, how come you're out here all on your own?"

Naruto had been running non-stop, putting as much space as possible between him and that… that place… that hospital-like place of impending doom! When he'd caught sight of Hinata, he was quite surprised, as nobody else seemed to be around, and she seemed so… vulnerable at the point in time. As he slowed down, he realized he was feeling an emotion that was extremely unfamiliar to him, mostly owing to the fact that hardly anybody had ever associated themselves with 'the demon.' But thinking about this strange feeling, he was rather shocked to find that he was worried about the girl, concerned about her. It was this thought that made him speak up. But from the reaction he'd gotten, he wasn't sure that she really wanted to know him. Perhaps her parents had finally told her that she should not go near him as well? Just like Chouji's? After all, she did seem to faint a lot around him, and always turned away or looked at something else when talking…

'_Maybe she really doesn't want to know me… but doesn't want to be rude…'_

A sudden bitterness arose within the blonde boy. A bitterness coupled with sadness. All of a sudden, he felt empty, alone again, isolated from everybody else…

Hinata on the other hand, was having completely different thoughts.

'_H-he's… he's j-just standing a metre away… W-what should I-I say to him… I don't want him to think I'm weak…'_

Still prodding and poking her index fingers together, she was unable to find the right words to say, and settled for silence, not even bothering to fight her blush, knowing that it was a hopeless battle. However, when Naruto spoke again, she was shocked, and let out an audible gasp.

"Well… I'm sorry for bothering you Hinata… Probably best for me to get going then."

It wasn't the comment alone that shocked her - that he'd gotten the wrong impression from her actions - but the voice which had spoken them. It wasn't Naruto's happy mask voice, nor was it his determined voice. No… the voice that had said those words were full of sadness, loneliness, and longing… She could tell that he was upset for some kind of reason, from the way that each word had been forced, each one accompanied with a tremble. Even looking at his face, she could see him attempting, and failing miserably, to replace that smiling mask on his face, the one she'd seen so often as she watched him from the safety of the treeline. The same mask she'd seen him put on when the villagers rejected him… Her thoughts were interrupted as she suddenly noticed that he was walking away, head down, shoulders slouched, and a few droplets falling from his face… Seeing that he was leaving, Hinata quickly did the first thing that came to mind to stop him from doing so.

"No! Wait! Don't go Naruto!"

Turning around, a surprised expression on his face, the shy and timid nature quickly returned to the Hyugga girl, as she realized what she'd just done.

"Um…" was all she could managed, before she realized the boy was still waiting for a response.

"W-well… I c-could use a l-little company…" she stuttered out, her blush deepening as she did so.

Naruto on the other hand, couldn't have been happier. The bitterness, the sadness, the feeling of being alone, it was all gone! Somebody wanted his company!

'_Somebody finally wants to be my friend…'_

The whole time, the two of them simply sat there, looking at the sky, neither of them saying a word. The only movement around them came from Hinata, who was constantly darting her head back and forth, stealing glances at the boy beside her, blushing the whole time.

'_His eyes…'_ she thought, as she looked at the seemingly endless blue irises.

'_When I was watching him, they seemed so sad… when he was alone… But now he looks happy, and it's not that mask that he has to wear so often either…'_

Sighing happily, she let the contentment wash over her, the contentment of being outside, alone with Naruto, staring at the sky…

Naruto had his attention drawn to the girl next to him when he heard a sigh, and then the sounds of deep breathing. Looking over at her, he saw that she'd fallen asleep. Instantly, his thoughts of having his first real friend vanished, filled with panic. He knew that the Hyuuga clan was one of the more well known ones in the leaf village, and whilst he'd never met the clan head, he had no intention of getting on his bad side, especially if he was like the villagers…

But he couldn't exactly get Hinata to the main household manor… he didn't even know where it was! Sure, he'd walked her back once… but that had been more following, and he hadn't paid much attention to his surroundings.

"Well I can't just leave her out here on her own…"

Seeing that it was the only choice left, he lay down beside her and went to sleep.

As Naruto nervously approached the Hyuuga sector of the village, he realized with hindsight that it probably had not been such a good idea. Sure, it'd been the only option at the time, but now he was going to have to deal with a whole bunch of these white eyes… Remembering the last time when he'd run into one, and gotten his shoulder 'poked'…

'_Ugh… that took almost a week to heal…'_

Trying to ignore the stares that many of the clan members gave him, he tried to recall yet again, the reason he'd followed Hinata here.

He'd awoken to the sound of somebody calling his voice, and opened his eyes to see Hinata standing over him, face red as always, and trying to wake him up.

"Naruto… y-you didn't have t-to stay…"

Hearing this, the blonde had simply grinned.

"Of course I didn't have to, but I wanted to! It's not nice to leave your friends behind right?"

Somehow her face had gotten redder once he'd said that. Did she have a sickness or something? He had considered asking her about it but didn't want to seem intrusive…

Looking now at the pale girl, he saw that she appeared to be just as nervous. Her gaze never left the ground in front of her, she seemed to be trying to shrink in on herself and become invisible. Taking a quick moment to glance around, he realized that the members of the Hyuuga clan weren't staring at him with their glares, they were directed at Hinata! A few of them were pointing whilst muttering, and straining his ears, he managed to pick up a few words.

"Disgrace… failure… clan… shouldn't… main family…"

It seemed like an eternity before they reached the main family's door, at which point Naruto was struggling to hold in his anger at the people around him. As the two waited, he couldn't help it, and burst out shouting.

"STOP GIVING HINATA THOSE LOOKS YOU BUNCH OF WHITE EYED FREAKS!"

During his rant, he didn't noticed Hinata tugging at his jacket, or the sound of the door opening.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU!"

A slightly harder tug on his clothing, and Naruto turned around, and sweat dropped, putting on an awkward grin, whilst thinking one thing.

'_Why did this have to happen to me…'_

Standing in the doorway, was a white eyed man, with rather long hair, falling all around his head. He stood with an air of authority that was unmistakable, and Naruto's fears were confirmed when Hinata finally managed to speak.

"Um… H-hello father…"

The blonde noted that she'd bowed her head down even further, sagged her shoulders more, and the gaze that had previously been focused on the ground in front of her was now directed at her feet. But despite her changing manner, he didn't feel the same feeling of hate that was normally directed at him. Looking up to meet the man's gaze, he found none of the hatred, disgust, or loathing, that the villagers had shown to him. Had the situation been any different, he'd be jumping around, yelling happily that there was another person in the village who didn't want him dead. But given the current circumstances, he felt it wiser to remain still and let Hinata explain.

"Well… um… the reason I was um… I was not... here yesterday…"

Or not. Clearing his throat, he began to speak, in his most polite manner.

"Sorry, me and Hinata were out in some clearing in that direction…" he vaguely waved a hand behind him, "and we kind of lost track of time. So that's why she wasn't home last night. I didn't mean to make you worry about her um… Mr…?"

The response certainly wasn't the one he'd expected, filled with anger, or reprimanding him.

"My name is Hiashi Hyuuga. No need to be sorry for that. Whether she's in the household or not is of no concern to me."

Naruto had sighed in relief at the first sentence, but hearing the Hyuuga head's next words, he was surprised that somebody could change their mood in just a single sentence, and he felt his previous anger returning, especially when he saw the effect that it had on Hinata. Struggling to refrain from shouting out, he turned to leave.

"You shouldn't treat her like that," was all he trusted himself to say without exploding. Pausing to say goodbye to the shy girl, he continued on his way out, ignoring the familiar stares that the villagers gave him, as they wondered what he'd been doing in the Hyuuga clan compound.

Hiashi, still standing at the doorway, gave nothing but a slight turn of his head, which Hinata interpreted to be 'get inside now.' Nodding, she rushed into the doorway, but her father remained outside. He was still staring in the direction of the blonde's exit, lost in thought.

"_How foolish the rest of the villagers must be, to think he is the same demon? He does show a great deal of concern for those close to him, like Hinata… But he doesn't understand that what I'm putting her through is necessary… It was HER request for me to do so…"_

A sad expression briefly flitted across his face as an image of a certain woman came to his mind, with white eyes just like his, blue hair like his daughter's, a dazzling smile on her face.

'_I'm sorry Hinata… but things will only get harder from now on. Believe me, it is difficult for me not to acknowledge all your achievements so far, or watch you break down in your room. But it's all for the best.'_

"Sir?"

Hiashi's head snapped around, settling on the branch family member who'd spoken, who now trembled slightly under the Hyuuga clan head's gaze.

"My apologies for disturbing you sir, but you should be getting inside, it's almost eight o clock."

A sudden fear clutched his heart.

"Have the preparations been made?"

"Yes sir, everything is ready."

"Very well. Thank you."

Turning swiftly, he ran into the household, weaving through hallways and various rooms, until he reached a door labeled with the Kanji 'Forgiveness.' Sighing with relief as he glanced at a nearby clock, he saw that he'd made it with a few minutes to spare. Calming down a little, he slowly opened the door, closing it behind him before kneeling down. Before the Hyuuga clan head, was a simple altar, three candles surrounding it on a smooth wooden floor.

Bowing his head, a few drops of water fell onto the floor, splashing across the shiny surface.

"_I'm sorry brother…"_


	7. Introduction to Chakra

An orange bundle lying on a small pile of rags shifted, eventually sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, as sunlight filtered through the hole in the wall which was apparently a window. Slowly, he trudged through a dusty doorway to his kitchen, instantly heading to the fridge where he kept all of his ramen. Naruto wasn't even completely conscious yet, the action of preparing instant ramen for breakfast had become second nature for him. Still lost in thought, he started to collect water from the tap attached to the side of his wall, turning away slightly from the glare of the sunlight.

'_Wait… Glare?'_

"OH MY GOD I'M LATE!"

Naruto quickly rushed out of his small apartment, for once, forgetting his precious ramen cup which still sat on his table. At that present time, all he could think of, was first, how he would never become Hokage if this kept up, and second, how Iruka-sensei was going to KILL HIM! But even as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him, fate seemed to try and stand in his way, as he came to a skidding halt, looking in horror at the mass of villagers in front of him.

'_Oh crap… I forgot about them…'_

The usual villagers who seemed to have taken a liking to throwing things at him, were now amassed in their usual place. Except now, it was later in the day… Which meant that there were more now…

'_Just calm down… You can get through this… OW! No I can't, no I can't!'_

Attempting to cover his head with his head as much as possible, he began running again.

As expected, when the blonde finally dragged himself into the classroom, Iruka had absolutely lost it, although most of the anger was at his lecture being disrupted. It wasn't until Naruto began to walk to his seat that the Chuunin teacher stopped, noticing the trail of blood that seemed to be following the boy's feet. Apparently, parts of the class noticed this too, as a portion of the fan girls stopped giving starry-eyed gazes to Sasuke, and instead, widened their eyes in shock or disgust. Hinata, who had been looking rather down at the sight of the empty seat beside her, looked up and smiled, before the expression abruptly left her face at the sight of him.

"Um… N-naruto… W-what happened to you?" she asked the boy as he took his seat beside her, the numerous scratches and cuts evident on his clothing and skin. Her pale eyes widened when he turned around, as she took in the sight of a fresh bruise forming around his left cheek, steadily getting darker.

'_Why does he keep appearing in class like this…'_

Naruto felt as if he'd been hit by the fourth Hokage's head from the Hokage monument. Every one of his steps had felt excessively heavy, and it had been a hard fought battle to open the door, step in, and shuffle to his seat whilst enduring the 'interrupted-lecture rage' of his sensei. He'd almost grinned at the collective gasps of the class, but was a little surprised when he heard a much smaller, more timid sounding gasp, coming from his left. He looked to see Hinata looking straight at him, or rather, the injuries on him, a look of concern on her face. But what shocked him most, was the single tear that gathered at the corner of her eye, and slowly rolled down her skin, dropping to the table surface. Just as Naruto was about to ask what was wrong, she spoke up, in a rather shaky voice.

"W-why… Why do y-you keep coming to c-class with these injuries?"

The blonde began to sweat nervously, he didn't want anybody, especially not his only friend, to know what was hapenning.

"Uh… it's nothing really… I just trip over things and crash into stuff a lot… yea…"

Looking at her expression, she clearly wasn't convinced, and Naruto hoped that she would just drop the subject, so he wouldn't have to talk about it. His hopes were dashed quickly.

"No, really Naruto. What's causing all of these?" she asked, gesturing vaguely to his numerous injuries, speaking with a strange conviction – even her stuttering was temporarily gone! The boy could see that he had no choice, and began to explain.

"Well… the villagers kind of –"

"NARUTO AND HINATA! STOP TALKING AND PAY ATTENTION TO THIS EXPLANATION OF CHAKRA CONTROL!"

With a sudden strange enthusiasm, the blonde snapped his attention quickly to the front, focusing extremely intently on what Iruka-sensei had to say. Sighing, Hinata also faced the front, once again taking note of the various techniques the Chuunin was describing. Of course, now that she didn't have some sort of determination to make sure that the boy beside her was ok, her normal routine, which consisted of casting occasional glances at him, and blushing, resumed…

Naruto was practically falling asleep as Iruka neared the end of his lecture, snapping out of his sleep-like state instantly as soon as he heard the words "practical activity for chakra control." Eagerly, he followed the rest of the class out into the training grounds, where multiple wooden 'walls' had been erected fro the practice.

"Alright class, your job for the rest of the day is to try and climb up these walls." Iruka said, pointing to the smooth wooden surfaces.

"They are vertical, with no handholds, which means it will be impossible for you to do without using your chakra. In this case, you focus chakra to your fingers and hands, as well as your feet, too allow you to stick to the surface, like this!"

The entire class stood with their mouths agape (except for precious little Sasuke of course, who simply stood there with an unimpressed expression), as their sensei clung like a spider onto the wood, and began pulling himself up, using only his fingers and toes as points of contact.

"Ok you've gotten your instructions, now begin!"

The brown haired Chuunin watched as his students attempted to climb up the three metre tall walls, some trying a running start to get higher, others simply scrabbling hopelessly whilst still on the ground. Sasuke, who'd clearly received prior training before the Uchiha clan massacre, was already sitting on the top, in his usual brooding pose, ignoring the squeals and promises of love from the fan girls who had grouped around his wall. But he noticed, that as he continued observing the students, that he couldn't see Naruto or Hinata anywhere.

"Um… Sensei…"

A soft voice spoke up, and he turned to see Hinata with Naruto.

"Do y-you really t-think that Naruto s-should be taking part in t-this exercise?" she asked, gesturing to his torn clothes, and undoubtedly, the injuries underneath them. Behind her, Naruto violently shook his head at his sensei, and Iruka, knowing of Naruto's healing ability, tried to convince the Hyuuga girl that the boy would be fine.

"Naruto's a tough one, he'll be fine. Right Naruto?"

The blonde quickly nodded in agreement, and raced off, grabbing Hinata's hand and practically dragging her to one of the vacant wooden walls in his eagerness to get started. Iruka instantly took note of the red shade that had suddenly sprung up in the shy girl's cheeks the moment Naruto had touched her hand. Turning away, he smiled knowingly to nobody in particular.

'_Those two are going to get together for sure when they're older…"_

A loud SMASH sound, followed by the audible noise of wooden splinters hitting the ground, brought his attention back to the blonde.

Naruto had been about halfway up the wall when it'd happened. Before trying to begin the climb, he had entered the horse stance, formed a hand sign, and focused to see whether he could actually call up his chakra. He was almost delighted, when he saw that his chakra network, as Iruka had called it, seemed to have a boundless supply. It almost felt like there was a second source of it somewhere… not that the current one wasn't large enough! Grinning, he'd directed a large portion to his hands and feet, and started to climb, only for the wooden surface to shatter as soon as he put his second foot on.

"! Iruka-sensei, the wall exploded!"

The Chuunin walked over, looking at the pieces of wood lying all over the ground, then at the sheepish looking blonde, who was now rubbing the back of his head, a nervous grin on his face.

"It's alright Naruto, that tends to happen when you put too much chakra, and the wood isn't strong enough to channel it all. Try again on another wall."

The boy obliged, and put his hands up to it, only to have it instantly shatter, with no time to even start climbing.

"What the hell…" he muttered to himself, as he went over what he'd felt his chakra system do. The first amount he'd put in was normal, he was sure of that. But as he'd put his hands to the wall, Naruto had felt it suddenly increase, a boost from that 'second' chakra source he'd found before. When he voiced these concerns to Iruka, they were dismissed as 'not very important, and was advised to work on controlling the second source to try and prevent it from putting in any excess chakra. Confused as to how to do this, he decided to take a break, instead, standing under Hinata as she tried, in case she fell. However, there was clearly no need for this, and Naruto could only watch in awe (and happiness, she was his only friend after all!) as the shy, blue-haired girl slowly made her way up, until she reached the top, where she now sat with a gleeful expression.

Ironically, Naruto was the one stuttering now.

"B-but… you… how… first time…!"

The girl just giggled, and prepared to climb down, swinging her feet back onto the wall, when her hands suddenly seemed to lose their grip on the slippery wooden surface.

"AHH!"

Naruto stared in shock as she fell, headfirst, towards the ground. In an attempt to catch her, he quickly rushed under Hinata. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, a terrible pain in his head, and something heavy on his body.

"Ow…"

Gathering his bearings, he tried to get up, only to find that the heavy weight on him was preventing him from doing so. Craning his neck forward to see what it was, he saw that he'd partially succeeded in helping Hinata – even though he'd failed quite remarkably at catching her, he'd provided a landing spot so she wouldn't be hurt.

'_Wish it wasn't this painful though…'_

Feeling the bundle on him stir slightly, he smiled, glad that she was alright.

"Hey Hinata, glad you joined us again," he said with a smile. The reaction he got however, was completely unexpected. The blue haired girl stiffened up suddenly, at the sound of his voice, took a few moments looking at his clothing, as if registering that it were orange, and that it was Naruto she was on, before her face suddenly flushed multiple shades of red that couldn't be healthy. It also didn't help that she'd fainted, still on him, as he was now stuck.

"Uh… Iruka-sensei help!"

When the Chuunin saw the position Naruto was in, his eyes goggled out, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words at what he thought was happening before him.

"NARUTO WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING WITH HINATA?"

Iruka glared down at the boy as he sputtered and tried to explain.

"N- No! Honest I wasn't doing anything! I just tried to catch her when she fell!" Seeing his sensei's unconvinced glare, he felt it was necessary to put in a more convincing argument.

"I SWEAR I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT! NOW HELP ME GET BACK UP!"

'_There. That should convince him.'_

As the brown-haired instructor lifted the girl gently off him so that he could stand up again, Naruto began questioning Iruka as to why Hinata kept fainting.

"… and she keeps going red all the time, as if some sort of really fast fever keeps hitting her. Then she just faints. She's not sick or something is she?" he asked, a face of innocent concern put up. That expression changed to shock as he watched his sensei suddenly face vault into the ground, legs sticking up at a peculiar, unnatural looking angle, occasionally twitching slightly.

"?"

With a helpless shrug to nobody in particular, he turned back to the wall to resume the practice. Once again he raised a hand up, focusing some energy into it. Surprisingly, a small blue glow appeared, forming a three dimensional shape close to his hand. Naruto wasn't sure whether this was meant to happen or not, but decided to try it out anyway. Reaching out, he touched his hand to the wall. Without so much a second of contact, it shattered.

'…'

He tried with the rest of the walls, with little change to the results. Before long, a very annoyed class was looking at him, as he sheepishly walked out of a large pile of wooden pieces.

'_I guess they're not too happy that I kinda blew up their practice wall after asking to borrow it for a bit…'_

Whilst attempting to think a way out of his sure to be impending doom, he suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion.

'_Man I'm tired… why wha-…'_

Unable to even consciously think any further, he collapsed, the only signs for the cause of this being the chakra burns on his hands, which even now, were disappearing, glowing with a strange red light as they did…


	8. Complications

Naruto blinked as his eyes took in his surroundings. White walls… white sheets, white bed frames, white roof… something blue in the corner on a white bed… He was in the hospital again!

'_What the hell happened to me?'_

Slowly turning his head, he blinked again, trying to get his eyes to focus, attempting to rid himself of the cloudy vision that was the result of a few hours of unconsciousness. As his sight slowly cleared, he noticed that he was not alone in the room. The blue 'thing' he'd glanced over in his hasty analysis of his current location, was none other than Hinata, sitting on a chair, but leaning over the end of the bed opposite to his own, fast asleep.

'_Oh yea… that's right, she fainted from her weird fever thing again. But what happened to me?'_

He screwed his eyes shut together tightly, struggling to remember what had happened, at first, getting no further than the repeated image of a wooden wall 'exploding.' Then he remembered that he'd collapsed shortly after a few more attempts at using his chakra to climb. And there'd been that heat gathering near his hands, a heat that had begun to burn him… But looking down at his hands now, there was no sign of any damage, and the pain had completely disappeared. Seeing that he had no visible injury anywhere on his body, he was about to let out a cry of joy and race out of the room, when he remembered that Hinata was still there.

'_Wouldn't be good to leave my friend here alone would it?'_

Fighting all his instincts, and attempting to block out the whiteness of the room, as well as his own memories of its counterpart in the Konoha hospital, he managed a stiff walk to the seat beside her, and ordered his body to sit.

Meanwhile, a dark-blue haired boy, with onyx coloured eyes, was pacing around one of the many parks in Konoha, his usual angry expression plastered onto his face. His appearance – unfocused eyes, angry glare, creased eyebrows, and a set mouth line – said it all, he was brooding again. But this time, the anger was worse. He seemed more disturbed, livid even, and his pacing grew increasingly violent. Oblivious to his raging actions, his mind was doing some raging of its own, recalling the first taijutsu exercise his class had been assigned, then his confrontation with Naruto, all his thoughts revolving around that orange clad ninja.

'_How. How can some loser like that, beat me in an exercise as basic as that? I'm the last Uchiha! Superior to all! I received special training from the clan elders before the massacre! And he still beat me!'_

Dwelling on that thought proved impossible for his ever so superior brain to do, so he quickly tossed it aside, replacing it with the usual.

'_It must have been a fluke…'_

Thinking back to his fight earlier with Naruto, he smiled as he remembered the power he'd felt behind his fireball jutsu, the chakra he'd managed to manifest at his mouth and ignite the air. Although that image was quickly shattered at the memory of his back receiving a rather painful kick from the blonde. Gritting his teeth, he came to the only possible conclusion, well, for his ego anyway.

'_Damnit Iruka sensei… If you hadn't stepped in that loser would have been toast!'_

Seemingly satisfied with this 'realisation,' the excessive brooding face eased up a little, and for the first time, the Uchiha ceased his pacing momentarily to take in his surroundings…

Oh god no… how had they found him so easily?

Running as quickly as his legs would allow, he began racing towards the safety of the Uchiha compound, trying to block out what would happen to him if that rapidly approaching dust cloud emitting girl like squeals and things such as "Oh Sasuke you're the coolest" caught up with him.

Back in the clinic room, Hinata slowly opened her eyes, squinting at first at the sunlight that poured in through the open window. Looking at it, she wondered absently why there wasn't a shade drawn across it, until she realized that she wasn't in the Hyuuga household. Her mind still in a haze, the girl noticed that the sunlight seemed to be reflecting extremely brightly, a bright yellow and orange colour, on the opposite wall where the chairs were, and slowly stood up, making her way over to the brightness to see what was causing it. However, upon reaching it, and touching the 'light' with a hand, she jumped back with a squeak as she felt hair and cloth instead of air. With that, her vision cleared, and blood immediately rushed to her face, taking their customary place on her cheeks, as she discovered the bright thing, not to be a reflection of the sunlight, but Naruto, looking up at her with a happy, yet embarrassed expression.

"Hey Hinata! I was wondering when you were going to wake up, I woke up a while ago, but didn't want you to be alone when you did. Glad to see you're ok!"

While the main portion of her mind was repeating its general mantra of _'don't faint don't faint,' _a small part of her subconscious processed what he said, and brought it to her normal consciousness. Her eyes widened rapidly, and the red shade under her eyes became even more defined.

"Y-you stayed h-here f-for m-me?"

Naruto looked very surprised at this question, of course he had! There wasn't anybody else there, right?

"Sure I did! Can't just leave my best friend by herself can I?" he said with a laugh, bringing up a cheerful grin.

'_He thinks of me as his best friend?'_

If it were possible at all, the red increased in colour and shade yet again.

The blonde boy was puzzled to say the least. Expecting a response from the girl, he'd waited for her reply, but she showed no sign of doing so. Apart from that weird red flush she always seemed to have, which appeared to be increasing in intensity. To avoid the awkward silence that was steadily building up, he decided to see if she knew why he was in here.

"Hey Hinata, do you know what made me collapse before? I just felt really tired all of a sudden after trying to climb those walls," he said, leaving out the fact that he'd made them all fall to pieces before setting a single foot onto any of them.

The girl sweat-dropped, hadn't he been listening to Iruka-sensei in class earlier? Then her expression drooped, as she remembered the state he was in, and mentally berated herself for being so arrogant and expecting him to be able to listen.

"Well… um… Iruka-sensei s-said that if y-you used up too m-much chakra t-then you c-could l-lose consciousness… and um… he c-called it chakra exhaustion."

"WHAT! YOU MEAN THERE'S A LIMITED AMOUNT OF THIS STUFF!"

Her small, timid nod was confirmation enough.

"NOOOOOOO!

Despite the situation, and her difficulties in keeping her blush under control, Hinata couldn't help but giggle slightly at his hysterics, as he raced in circles around the room rambling something about not being able to become Hokage if he didn't have infinite chakra. Her small laughter was cut short however, as he reappeared suddenly in a flash in front of her, so quickly that she hadn't even seen it. The astonishment at his speed also vanished, as she realized the distance between their faces was less than an inch, and he was staring directly into her eyes.

"Well… I guess that if I don't have an infinite amount like I SHOULD," he said, emphasizing the 'should' heavily.

"I'll just have to learn how to use it better so I don't waste much. Hey you got that wall climbing thing on your first go, think you could teach me?" he asked her, still staring at her, and putting on a begging look.

For a while, Hinata didn't even process what he was saying, all she could notice was that his face had been an inch away, now it was little more than half a centimeter from her own, and as far as she was concerned, slowly closing the gap. Then she realized he'd spoken.

'_Oh, I should answer, I don't want him to think I'm being rude…'_

She lifted her head up to answer.

"Um… Of co-"

Naturally it was at that moment that Naruto lost his balance, and fell forward.

"Ahh look o-"

Both of their words were abruptly ended, and Hinata, being pushed backward by the blonde's body weight, fell, dragging Naruto down with her. But the shock wasn't the real reason for their sudden lack of speech. No, it was something much more physical than that. Blocking both their access to air, was the other person's mouth.

'_!' _was the only thought that ran through both of their heads, as both attempted to fight off the sudden freeze up their bodies seemed to be experiencing. Finally, Naruto was able to get his bearings, and pushed himself off her. He closed his eyes, expecting to be rejected like the rest, a lecture on how he'd abused her, and threats regarding his personal safety.

'_Great… I'm about to lose the only friend I had, all because I couldn't stand up properly!'_

Instead, he heard her speak up, albeit it in a more prominent stutter than usual, but she spoke to him nonetheless, and it wasn't hostile.

"Um… Y-yes N-naruto, I'd b-be h-happy t-t-to t-t-teach y-you."

And with that, the red marks on each of her cheeks seemed to spread all across her face until it was practically glowing a bright crimson colour. Given the event that had just occurred, that is, direct lip to lip contact with Naruto, her mind took the most logical option. She fainted.

Sasuke had just managed to outrun the dust cloud of death. He paused in front of the academy gates, trying to catch his breath, and decided that hiding inside would be safest. Walking through the hallway, he attempted to find a place where nobody would even think of looking for him at this hour.

'_Hm… the classroom's too predictable, and anywhere else is too open… I'll head for the clinic.'_

However, when he entered the small white room, he definitely was expecting what he saw. His eyes narrowed, his brow creased itself even further, and an absolutely murderous look crawled onto his facial features. Almost without thinking, he spoke.

"You owe me a rematch. Fight me. Now."

Naruto looked back at Sasuke as though he were insane. The boy's voice had left practically no room for argument, complaint, or negotiation. It was almost as if he were demanding for a fight, not taking no for an answer...

"Come on Naruto. I came here to demand a fight, and I'm not taking no as an answer."

'_Oh…'_

Normally Naruto wouldn't have a problem with fighting Sasuke, just like the dark haired boy, he also felt as though he had a score to settle, once which had been interrupted by Iruka-sensei. But he couldn't… not with Hinata here as well, she could get hurt from Sasuke recklessly shooting of one of those fireball thingies again…

"Some other time Sasuke, not while Hinata's out cold over here. I'm not leaving till she wakes up."

As if fate were spiting him, the girl stirred and opened one eye, gasping 'Naruto' before turning beet red again. She did however, remain conscious, and the Uchiha smirked.

"Sorry Naruto, but you're not getting out of this one that easily. Just because you're too scared to fight, doesn't mea you can use pathetic excuses like that. And look at her, it looks like your excuse is now non-existent… HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHEN I'M SAYING SOMETHING!"

For the blonde had immediately rushed over to Hinata's side when she'd woken up, and begun checking if she was ok.

"Hey Hinata, you ok? Um… Yea… Sorry about the… you know…" he muttered, turning a shade of red rivaling the colour on the girl's own face. Although any trace of possible competition was immediately crushed when at the mention of the 'incident,' her blush rose several shades higher.

"Um… t-that's ok N-naruto, I'm f-fine."

Both of them jerked their heads up suddenly as they heard Sasuke shout, and the blonde stood up again, sheepishly rubbing his hand on the back of his head, wearing an embarrassed grin.

"Hehe… sorry about that, were you saying something again?"

The Uchiha simply sweat dropped, and felt his anger rise again.

'_How the hell could this guy tie with me? And how dare he ignore an Uchiha, the strongest of the Hidden Leaf Village clans! I'll make him pay…'_

"Meet me at the training ground behind the academy. Unless of course, you're just too scared to face me," he said with an arrogant grin on his face. Naruto's expression told him enough, the gritted teeth and red-slitted eyes indicated to him that the blonde was angry, and would definitely show up.

But as Sasuke jumped away to the academy training grounds, he almost tripped over in shock.

'_Wait… what? Slitted eyes?'_

Back in the small clinic room, Naruto turned to Hinata.

"Sorry Hinata, you'll have to make your own way home, there's no way I'm going to back down from this. I'll walk you home next time, ok?" he said with a smile. The dark blue-haired girl blushed again at his promise, and simply nodded. But as she watched him jump away, she remembered her times watching the boy sitting alone on the swing, where he had nobody to support him or acknowledge him.

'_If I leave him alone now, it won't be any different. Then no matter what, I'll always support him. And in this fight against Sasuke, I think he will need any support he can get.'_

She knew of the implications of her actions, she knew her father would greet her with a cold expression and question where she had been, and she knew he would likely disagree with staying in the boy's company when she told him. But her mind had been made up.

'_No matter what happens… I promise you won't be alone anymore.'_

Her mouth set in a firm line, she began to run in the direction of the academy training grounds.

**My Apologies for the long wait for this chapter, but I've had exams lately. I still have yearly exams on at the moment too, so the next update may not be for a while. But I'll keep trying my best to get a new chapter up as soon as possible (provided it's good enough of course :D)**

**Review :D. Any feedback is very much appreciated.**


	9. The Uzumaki Bloodline

Hinata had just finished scaling the four metre high wall of the academy which was barring her access to the training grounds, just in time to witness the start of the fight. Both Naruto and Sasuke were simply standing on the opposite ends of the field, each locked in a stare down, one so intense that neither had noticed her arrival. Then, as if set off by a sudden hidden signal, both boys moved, the blonde one running along the edge of the training grounds attempting to circle Sasuke, whilst the latter making a direct beeline for the blonde's position. From her observation, the shy girl noted that neither had much technique, even in their running, although Naruto appeared to be quite a bit faster. Usually, the one with a powerful clan would have received prior training, just like she had, which accounted for her perfect chakra control. However, due to the the Uchiha Massacre, Sasuke's clan had been killed off before they had started to introduce any taijutsu techniques to him, leaving the dark haired boy with only his fire jutsus to give him the edge in this battle.

But despite her low evaluation of Sasuke, she was extremely worried about Naruto. Whilst he seemed to have greater endurance and speed, as far as she could tell, the blonde also had little to no chakra control – judging from his attempts at wall climbing earlier – and also no ninjutsu to rely on, as he was an orphan. And despite his apparent greater physical capability, his actual taijutsu technique seemed terrible. She began to sweat as her concern for Naruto grew, as the Uchiha managed to land a kick to the blonde's side, causing him to double over and gasp for breath. Her breath hitched, and she stiffened up, eyes wide with fear, as Sasuke smirked whilst standing over Naruto's body, slowly and deliberately going through at set of hand signs, finishing with, and holding the tiger hand seal.

"Now I'll show you who's better… Fire style – Phoenix Fireball Jutsu!"

As he said the last word, he released the hand sign and exhaled, blowing out a barrage of small fireballs that pelted the motionless orange lump on the ground. From her position, Hinata couldn't do anything but watch, as her friend was burnt. A tear made its way down her face, both at the pain Naruto must have been feeling, and at her own helplessness.

'_Father was right… I am useless, I can't even help Naruto when he needs it…'_

A poof sound caused her to look up, and see a log burning where Naruto had been.

'_When did he learn the Substitution jutsu?'_

Little did she know that a similar thought was running through Sasuke's head, although it involved a bit of swearing, frustration, and disbelief as well.

As if Naruto could sense the Uchiha's inability to comprehend what had just happened, he decided to explain.

"Saw a bunch of Chuunin doing that swapping thingy the other day. Looked pretty cool, and handy to get away from the villagers quickly, so I decided to learn ask the old man for a scroll on it, and I managed to learn it. How's that for your 'genius' huh?" he finished with a kick to the centre of Sasuke's chest, sending the other boy skidding a few feet along the ground.

Hinata smiled, both at Naruto's determination that had allowed him to learn the substitution, as it was a Chuunin level technique, and the fact that he'd just beaten the listed 'prodigy' of the class. Stepping forward, she began to move out of her hiding place, when a wave of… something… hit her, terrifying her, and rendering her immobile. Managing to turn her head towards where Sasuke had been, she almost cried out as she heard his voice.

"Fire style – Grand Fireball Jutsu!"

Naruto heard the voice shout out, not quite believing his ears. His mind took a while to register what was going on.

'_A fire style jutsu? But that means Sasuke! And I just pummeled him into the ground!'_

Turning swiftly, to his horror, he was greeted by a wall of burning orange flame, which was making its way towards him VERY quickly.

'_Ahh! No time to do a substitution thingy! Can't move out of the way fast enough! Hope this doesn't hurt like the village beatings…'_

With no options left, he closed his eyes and waited for the burning to reach him. But it never did, instead, he felt a sudden impact push him from his spot, and although he felt some pain from his landing, there was none of the burning sensation which he'd expected from the fireball. Opening his eyes, he practically let out a roar as he saw what had happened. Hinata had pushed him out of the way, and even as he watched, the flames were eagerly attacking her, her face wearing an expression of constant pain.

'_No! Hinata!'_

He didn't know why she was here, and why she hadn't gone home. But none of that was registering. The only thing he could feel, was a mixture of shock, pain, and anger, the three sensations merging together into one, and erupting within him. Growling, he turned to Sasuke, anger clearly evident in his eyes, burning with a barely suppressed rage.

"You! You hurt my only friend! And for that, you're gonna pay!"

His eyes changed, glowing a deep, bright blue colour, and his chakra fanned out to surround his body in a blue aura, slowly twisting itself into a definable shape – one that shocked the Uchiha. A pair of chakra ears formed, the blue energy branching down the blonde boy's body, surrounding his arms and legs whilst forming claw shapes. Then, from the rear of the chakra mass, emerged a single tail, which flicked idly about as if it had a mind of its own.

"No way…" muttered the Uchiha to himself, as his eyes took in the sight before him. Standing in front of him, now cradling Hinata in his arms, was Naruto. But his chakra had somehow manifested itself in the shape of a fox around him, and his eyes were glowing a bright blue. And the amount of chakra he was giving off… it was ridiculous! In just a few seconds, the loser had radiated more then three times his own maximum chakra capacity! But his moment of awe at the power being exhibited in front of him was not a long lasting one, as a deep menacing growl-like sound came from the blonde.

"Sasuke… You already made me angry enough during our own fight… And now that you've hurt Hinata, you've pushed me past the limit!"

With those words, Naruto disappeared from the Uchiha's view, momentarily comoing into his line of vision before the boy's body was thrown backwards with tremendous force, straight into the line of trees behind him. And despite the severe pain running through his body, Sasuke noticed that Naruto had never let go of Hinata's body throughout the entire thing. Amazed, he watched as the blue chakra cloak began to envelope her body as well, spreading quickly to the areas with the worst burns, healing them and restoring the skin to its original pale colour. As her wounds healed, the blonde seemed to calm down a little, and his eyes stopped glowing, returning to a less bright shade of blue. He sent a glare in Sasuke's direction.

"Next time, you'll be going through a lot more pain if something like this happens again."

And then he was gone, carrying Hinata, and running in the general direction of the Hyuuga manor, leaving the Uchiha child in both a state of shock, and state of pain.

As Naruto ran along, he couldn't help but feel a bit anxious.

'_Man… I have to take Hinata to her father… but how am I going to explain that she got hurt because I decided to pick a fight with some guy in my class?'_

His apprehension grew as the walls of the Hyuuga property grew larger, filling his vision. He could almost imagine getting beaten up or something of the like by her father, for getting her hurt.

'_Man, I should have walked her home first, to make sure she didn't follow me… I already knew she was some kind of heiress or something in that clan, why didn't I?'_

As he entered the front gate, the same whispers that he'd heard the last time he'd been here started up again. This time, they were also not directly about him, instead directed towards the girl in his arms, although most of them related to him in some way.

"Associating with that… What is she thinking… Disgrace to our clan… Tainting…"

Attempting to ignore everything, he continued his rush towards the main household door.

Sarutobi sighed as he sat once again in his office, receiving complaints of disruptive behaviour from the academy. The reports that had been filed from various civilians and families of some of the genin, stated that bright flashes of blue light, shouting, and loud sounds, had been coming from the academy training grounds, and many who did not understand that the grounds were closed after classes had finished had sent in multiple complaints – in other words, more paperwork for him to deal with. The old man knew what the source of the light and sound had been, nothing else could produce a blue light of that intensity, save for Kakashi Hatake's Lightning Blade, but he knew that the Jounin in question was currently on a reconnaissance mission on the outskirts of the village hidden in the sand. And that left only one explanation for the occurrence.

"It seems that he's unlocked his unique clan bloodline ability, much earlier than expected, but I suppose that can only be a good thing." He said out loud to nobody in particular. Pushing the large stack of filed complaints off to the side, he made a few hand seals, casting a genjutsu of a Sarutobi sitting at his exact position, alert and attending to the paperwork. With everything set in place, he leaned back and closed his eyes, a smile on his face.

Hiashi Hyuuga was now rubbing his temples, attempting to rid himself of the splitting headache he had courtesy of Naruto's babbling attempts to explain himself and Hinata's condition. Based on what little sensible speech the boy had managed to blurt out, he'd been involved in a fight with the Uchiha child, and in the process, his daughter had gotten hurt protecting him. But Hiashi's thoughts couldn't progress any further, as Naruto seemed to believe that his current explanation had not been enough, and continued his attempts to apologise.

"I'm really sorry about what happened, really! Please don't do something like stop us from being friends or something, she's the only friend I have please don't take –"

"Stop."

The one word from the Hyuuga head was enough to silence him, for which Hiashi was glad, as he decided it was time to question the blonde before him a bit more, to actually find out what had happened. Like Sarutobi, he had also felt the huge chakra outburst from the academy, but had not been able to identify it. Now, he wanted to know if it had been from the Uchiha, or from Naruto. To himself, he hoped it was the latter, for the last Uchiha to have such power, would be like a slap in the face to the Hyuuga clan.

"When you saw her injured, how exactly did you manage to defeat the Uchiha and get away so easily, when you'd previously had difficulty matching him in the fight?"

The boy thought for a while, constantly under the observation of Hyuuga. His face scrunched up in concentration for a few moments, then to absolute confusion, before he spoke again.

"Uh… that's actually a good question… I have no idea. I just remember seeing her get burnt by his 'grand fireball' thing or whatever it's called, and then I was running towards this place."

Hiashi frowned, first at the mention of the Uchiha genin already knowing the grand fireball technique, and secondly, at Naruto's statement about Hinata getting burned. When the boy had brought her back here, she'd seemed fine, no trace of even a scratch on her body or clothing. Burns caused by a fire technique would have lasted at least a week on any person before healing, and yet, he could not sense any deceit from the person in front of him. Making a mental note to see the Hokage about this, he simply nodded, giving a sign of acceptance of the events which had occurred. But now it was time to keep on the mask, not something he wanted to do, but something his wife had requested upon her death.

"In any case, it would not have mattered if you had brought her back, considering the little worth to the clan she has," he stated, making note of the sudden fury appearing on the boy's facial expression.

"But I thank you for telling me what has occurred. You two will not be prevented from continuing your friendship. Now I must request that you leave. I have no doubt that the Hokage will want to hear about this too."

Turning quickly, fearing that the unusually perceptive boy would see through his emotionless cover, he departed from the room, not saying another word. Once he was sure that Naruto had left, and he was out of the hearing range of anybody in the compound, he raised his hands to form a single hand sign, and spoke.

"Hokage, I trust that you heard what happened?"

"Yes, and I believe that it is the manifestation of his clan bloodline ability appearing, a little prematurely, but still useful nonetheless."

"That's what the chakra burst was? It was definitely from Naruto, not Sasuke?"

"Yes, even the Uchiha clan with the Mangekyo Sharingan are not capable of releasing such a vast amount of chakra, Itachi himself would barely be able to do so, let alone Sasuke."

"Excellent. That is all I needed to know. Thank you for your time Hokage."

The next day at the academy was quite strange for Naruto indeed. First of all, he was able to get to the classroom unharmed, thanks to his knewfound knowledge of the substitution jutsu, allowing him to leave without a scratch, and giving the villagers the satisfaction that came from beating up a log. Secondly, he received none of the usual arrogant smirks or gloating looks from Sasuke in class, instead, a stare, consisting of disbelief, slight jealousy, but also a bit of respect. And thirdly, Hinata's face seemed redder than ever, and she insisted on staring at her desk, occasionally taking notes from what Iruka-sensei was saying, but never looking up or in any direction that would bring the boy beside her into her line of sight. And for once, with nothing ordinary to distract himself, he actually paid attention to what Iruka-sensei was saying! And weirder yet, Hinata, still beet red, was now pulling him aside after class into one of the hallways, where nobody else was in sight. He sent her a questioning look, which only seemed to make her more flushed, but after a few seconds, she shook her head to nothing in particular and began to speak.

"Um… F-father t-told me a-about w-what y-you did… I um… wanted to t-thank you."

Although that was putting it mildly. Remembering back to what her father had actually said to her, the implied message was much harsher.

"_You weakling! How can you, a Hyuuga, be injured by the only remaining member of the Uchiha clan! You're lucky that the Uzumaki boy was there to save you, if he weren't, you wouldn't be here! How could you not fight for youself?"_

Knowing that he would not be listening to her excuses, she had not tried to explain that she had done it to save Naruto from the attack, unaware that Hiashi already knew this, but simply had to fulfill his unknown promise. As the memory of that conversation returned, she tilted her head down even further, trying to hide the sad look that had surfaced. Naturally, the blonde boy noticed. Thinking that she was sad because she'd not returned home, he tried to reverse her line of thinking.

"Hey come on Hinata, don't be sad. If you weren't there, I'd be the one getting fried to a crisp. So no need to thank me for it ok?"

But his momentary attempt at spreading a cheerful mood was interrupted, as she brought up the same question that her father had asked him.

"Um… when I got burned… H-how did you get m-me away from the t-training grounds so q-quickly? And w-where were the burn m-marks? I didn't have any when I woke up…"

Naruto thought extremely hard this time, trying to remember what he'd felt at the sight of her injury. At first, it was all cloudy... and he couldn't recall anything… Then slowly, things started to come back to him. Some sort of bright blue light… a fox… him moving and punching a Sasuke who seemed to be moving in slow motion…

"Hinata." The girl looked up at his voice.

"I remember what happened… but the problem is I have no idea WHAT happened… I just remember this bright blue light, and punching that 'genius' in the stomach, but not anything that might show me what caused it."

But what she said in reply shocked him greatly.

"Um… f-father said that it c-could b-be y-your clan bloodline ability…" she hesitated slightly to let him take it all in, which was clearly needed, as his jaw practically touched the floor at the news.

"H-he also s-said t-to t-try and keep it secret… I d-don't know w-why though…"

"…"

An awkward silence fell over the pair, as the blonde tried to comprehend how he had any clan ability when he had no parents. After a while, he decided that he'd done enough deep thinking for today – his head was starting to spin and the day had been strange enough – and let the thought go.

"Um… I h-have to go home now… F-father is expecting m-me home soon…"

She turned around and began walking out.

"Just don't trip on the way there ok?" The memory that came associated with the word 'trip' almost did make her fall over, but she managed to settle for a red face and a small squeak, before continuing on her way home.

Meanwhile, Naruto had just remembered the same thing, courtesy of a mysterious deep sounding voice in his head. After saying that last sentence to his friend, something had said "Yea, remember what happened last time somebody tripped?" At this point, he was too embarrassed to question the presence of a voice in his head, the image of what had happened seemed permanently imprinted into mind, and his cheeks flushed bright red at the recount.

"Gah… stupid tripping memory thing messing with my head… I need some ramen…"

**Yes that is not the Kyuubi's power he shows in this chapter, but his own bloodline. I've decided not to go with the seal's trait of the Uzumakis, because frankly, it wouldn't be relevant until he becomes a seal master (and I don't plan on making him one).**

**My apologies for the long wait between this chapter and the last, hope you enjoyed it :)**


	10. Nine Tails

It was morning. The sun's rays of light, unimpeded by the wispy scraps of cloth that Naruto called his curtains, shined straight into the room, conveniently focusing onto the boy's face as he tried to sleep. Groaning, he rolled over, not willing to accept that morning had arrived, and it was time for him to wake up. However, his attempt to do so was futile, as his conscious mind slowly emerged, and with it, all the events of yesterday, how he had a bloodline ability from his clan, how he'd beaten Sasuke the day before that, and accidentally um… _tripped_ on the same day, and how he WAS NOW LATE FOR CLASS! Glaring at his broken alarm clock, he could see the two hands ticking innocently away, moving further and further away from the designated alarm time of 8:00am. Sighing with some degree of frustration, he quickly pulled on his orange jacket and track pants, somehow simultaneously managing to heat up, and then eat a cup of ramen. Frowning at his still growling stomach, he heated up a few more cups, grabbing them on his mad dash out the door… before coming to a screeching halt some ten steps later.

'_Huh? The villagers don't usually gather for the daily beating here… Usually they're two blocks away! What can I do? Can't really substitute whilst holding all this…'_

A happy grin suddenly appeared on his face, as he shouted out.

"Yay! I get to eat lots of ramen really fast!" And with that, he'd somehow pulled out a set of chopsticks from nowhere, and began tearing away at those ramen cups for all they were worth, getting out every last drop of broth and every fragment of noodle left in them before tossing the empty containers to the ground. Grinning from ear to ear at the taste of the food still lingering in his mouth, he made the appropriate hand signs, and substituted himself with a dog that just happened to be walking by. Poor thing. It might have been Naruto's imagination, but he thought he heard Kiba from his class cry out "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO AKAMARU!" But he would have been in class by now, no way could he still be back there. Shrugging off the possibility, he continued to run towards the academy, almost running into the wall when he got there, and walking slowly to the classroom in an attempt to regain his dignity for anybody who was still watching him.

Hoping that Iruka-sensei would not notice him enter, he tried substituting with a crunched up ball of paper near Shikamaru's chair, which was just two seats to the side of Hinata's, where his was. Now this plan might have actually succeeded except for two things. When he performed the jutsu, his head knocked rather loudly against the back of the lazy boy's chair, causing him to give out an equally, if not louder cry of pain. Secondly, a non-suspicious cloud of smoke now clung to the air behind Shikamaru, slowly drifting upwards, catching the attention of the Chuunin teacher as it did so. Still, hoping that somehow, the teacher had missed these signs, he crawled on his hands and knees to avoid being seen, slowly edging towards his seat. But fate seemed to be against him, or rather Hinata's automatic reaction. Upon seeing him slowly getting up into his seat, she'd turned red, gasped with a sharp intake of breath, and whispered quite audibly (and with some degree of surprise) "Naruto!" Iruka, who had up until now decided to ignore the obvious presence of his ever late student, could no longer take it, and shouted out.

"Naruto! Everybody knows you're here! Now just SIT DOWN!"

Sheepishly, the blonde complied, taking out the writing pad and pen, which had recently been gifted, to him by the Hokage. So his surprise hit him like a sledgehammer when Iruka spoke again.

"No Naruto, today's a practical lesson. We'll be working on more exercises for chakra control, and teaching you both the clone and transformation jutsus." Seeing his student's massive grin, he quickly clarified.

"First though, after we assemble in the training grounds, we'll go through each specific hand sign and instruction, and demonstration before we let you try for the rest of the afternoon. We've allocated a large time span based on our expectations to the time necessary for all each of you to master it. Now lets go!"

However, the words from Iruka had not reached Naruto's ears after he'd mentioned 'training grounds,' and judging by the horrified look on Sasuke's face, the same had happened to him.

'_Argh! We didn't exactly clean up after our fight! Hopefully Iruka-sensei won't ask about – "_

"What the? I certainly don't remember setting up this giant burnt patch on the training field. Looks like a fire style jutsu…"

As he contemplated the source of the scorch marks, and noting the various trees that were now laying horizontally along the ground with clearly shattered trunks, his gaze shifted over to the Uchiha, who even showed some slight fear on his face, and a shudder could be seen running through his body by anybody who was observing him.

"Sasuke. I'd request that you stay after class. Naruto, you too."

Seeing the look of terror sported from both their faces, he knew he'd been correct in his assumptions.

"But all that aside, lets get started."

With that, Iruka began walking around the training field, correcting any of the children if they were using the same hand signs, and any other general technique issues. As expected, Sasuke was the first to make a successful clone, followed shortly by Sakura. Both clones seemed almost identical to the original, save a patch of clothing missing from the clone Sasuke's shirt, and the left side of the Sakura clone's hair was not present. But they'd managed to make relatively good clones of themselves after just a few minutes. Looking over at Naruto and Hinata, he saw that the young girl had also managed to make a clone, one with no visible flaws at all aside from the strange way the grass seemed to bend around its feet. But it was at an even higher standard that the previous two he observed. But Naruto's clone, on the other hand…

It lay twitching on the ground, eyes and mouth wide open, with faded colours on its clothing and skin, as if somebody had bleached it. The legs seemed to be rubbery, and its body was waving around like some sort of banner, whilst the boy who produced it was frowning at it with an annoyed expression.

"Must not be enough chakra in it. Ugh."

Trying again, he flashed through the three signs, and thought _'Clone Jutsu!' _before opening his eyes to look at the results. The product was no different, just another pale, and clearly fake imitation of himself, wriggling around helplessly on the grass. But he'd noticed something that time. The same thing had happened when he'd attempted to climb the wooden wall at their introduction to chakra. Just then, as he completed the last hand sign and began focusing his own energy, he had felt a secondary one, a foreign one, enter his own, and mix with it, resulting in a sudden surge in the amount of chakra he was putting into the jutsu.

'_Guess its not that I don't have enough then…'_

Concentrating as hard as he could, he once again went through the hand signs and this time, tried to limit his chakra to the absolute minimum. Once again, he felt the sudden surge in chakra, but it was more controlled this time. He looked at the results, and saw that his clone had improved! Its skin tone and clothing colour were identical to his, the only difference was that… it was still waving around on the ground with no apparent bone structure or three dimensional existence…

'_Damnit…'_

A quick glance at Hinata told him that she wasn't exactly impressed by his level of chakra control or ability, a strangely conspicuous sweat drop was running down the side of her head as she watched him try.

"Um…"

The boy turned around, by now completely accustomed to picking out the extremely soft sound of Hinata's voice.

"Yea?"

Blushing instantly as he turned his gaze on her, she quickly ducked her head down in her customary fashion before speaking again.

"I could uh… use my B-byakugan t-to see w-what the problem is… I think I activated it a f-few d-days ago…"

His reply and accompanying grin almost made her faint. Not for any reason in particular, just because Naruto was saying it.

"Hey thanks! That'd be really helpful! And wow, you unlocked your family ability too? That's so awesome! Now we've both gotten ours!"

Giving the girl a grateful smile, he turned around and for what seemed like the twentieth time, positioned his fingers into the appropriate sounds, this time yelling out loud "Clone jutsu!" hoping that the larger cloud of smoke was a good sign. Behind him, he heard Hinata gasp in surprise and shock, and turned around, a questioning look on his face. One which quickly turned to disappointment as he saw his 'clone,' still on the ground, this time laying still like a sheet of coloured cardboard. He let out a frustrated sigh, before Hinata spoke up.

"Um… y-you put in about seven t-times m-more chakra than w-what is needed… And um… a strange r-red chakra appeared…"

The blonde boy continued to look at her, expecting the girl to continue, but it seemed her courage was used up for the day, and her face grew an even more defined shade of red as she tried to turn the other way, unable to speak anymore. However, Iruka, having heard her mention 'red chakra,' quickly rushed over to the two, and pulled Hinata aside.

"Hinata, come with me for a moment. I need to talk to you about something."

Surprised, the girl complied, following him back towards the classroom. Seeing that Naruto was about to follow her, the Chuunin quickly clarified.

"Just a second Naruto. I'll come and get you in a few minutes. Don't worry, neither of you are in trouble," he added, as he saw a worried look flash across both the children's faces.

When he and the girl entered the classroom, he told her to take a seat, and deciding against any unrelated ramble, cut straight to the point.

"Hinata, when you looked at Naruto's chakra flow, you mentioned a red chakra." Seeing the girl nod shyly, he continued.

"You can't tell anybody that you saw it, not even your father or members of your family." Noticing her mouth open with a question, he decided to answer it before it was out.

"I can't tell you why, that would be breaking a law set by the third Hokage. The origin of the red chakra… well… I'll be telling you that soon when Naruto gets here. Just wait a moment whilst I go get him."

Hinata simply nodded in response, and watched as Iruka left the room.

'_Naruto… Is this why you were alone?'_

A very confused blonde boy was brought into the classroom. Seeing the complete bewilderment displayed by him, Iruka decided to explain.

"Hinata's told me that she spotted a red chakra coming from your body when you were attempting to gather it to form a clone. I'm going to tell the two of you, the reason behind this. Please bear in mind that this is an S-rank village secret, confirmed by the third Hokage – neither of you are to tell anybody else but each other of this. Naruto, when you turn 16, you'll be allowed to tell anyone you see fit, but for now try to keep it a secret ok?" Assured by the affirmative nod from the young boy, he continued.

"Sealed away inside of you Naruto, is the spirit of the nine tails fox." He was about to explain further when he saw the looks of surprise, and horror appear from the children, and realized that Hinata must have had prior education on this matter due to her clan, and Naruto had probably heard about it from Hinata. The first response came from the boy.

"No way! Hinata said that the fox was killed by the fourth! He beat it when it attacked the village! She even showed me her clan library records! How could I have it sealed inside me?" As he spoke, his thoughts were running wild inside his head, as he thought of all the terrible possibilities that came with potentially having a demon spirit inside you. Was he going to turn into the demon? Would the other people be able to see? Was this going to ruin his chances of becoming a ninja?

His hopes that this was just some joke, and that his sensei had somehow been mistaken, were quickly dashed aside as Iruka continued to speak.

"I'm sorry Naruto, but the fourth Hokage only defeated the demon, but didn't kill it. The nine tails fox, is a creature composed of chakra, not life force, it's just that the chakra has manifested itself into a living form. The only way to bring it under control, was to seal it away. But none of the adults would be a suitable vessel, none of their chakra networks would be able to withstand such a sudden onslaught of energy. It had to be a relatively newborn child, one who's chakra system could easily adapt to the chakra from the nine tails."

Naruto was still struggling to accept the fact that he was a container for a demon who'd attacked the village. When he heard Iruka mention the need for a newborn child, only one question came to mind. Later, with hindsight, he'd look upon that moment in time and see himself as selfish for asking such a thing, but the natural human instinct was to try and pass on the blame, and that's exactly what he tried to do.

"Why me? Why did the fourth Hokage have to seal it in me? This is why the villagers hate me isn't it? Why they keep attacking me? Why couldn't someone elsehave it? Someone with parents to help them out?"

Iruka shook his head sadly, as he replied.

"Unfortunately, that's exactly why the fourth couldn't seal it into somebody with parents, he couldn't accept the burden that he'd be placing onto their family, by taking their child against their will. You see how you are treated today, he wasn't willing to give any of the families, especially not the civilians, that kind of bad reputation from the rest of the village."

Here, he hesitated, thinking for a moment, before continuing to speak.

"So he chose you, because you were an orphan, and your family was gone. That way at least, he could spare the other families in the village. I'm sorry Naruto, but it was the only way to stop the nine tailed fox from destroying the Hidden Leaf Village."

"Then I want to have a word with this guy…" growled the boy, eyes beginning to become a slightly lighter and more emanating shade of blue.

"He didn't even consider that I might not want this kind of treatment either! That I wouldn't enjoy being beaten up practically everyday of my life? Maybe he can go get his leg half torn off and see how he likes it…"

Again, the Chuunin was only able to shake his head in response.

"He's dead Naruto. The jutsu he performed to seal it within you required him to sacrifice his own life, which he put down willingly for the village. Remember that you're a ninja in training, and that one day, you may be required to do the same with your own life. I'm sorry to have to tell you like this, but I didn't think issues regarding the nine tails would appear this early. I've got to get back to class. The two of you are welcome to leave earlier, to take in what you've both just been told. I'll give you tutorials some other time on the clone and transformation jutsus."

With that, he turned around and headed back to where the other children were, most of whom were now peering through the window from the training grounds, trying to see what was going on. With a quick shout from Iruka however, they quickly resumed training. Back in the room, Naruto's eyes slowly stopped glowing, and instead focused on the wall in front of him, nothing but two blue orbs of sadness.

Hinata had been just as shocked as Naruto, when Iruka-sensei had told her about the nine tails fox spirit being sealed away in him. However, once her mind had gotten around it, it'd quickly established links, links between the behaviour of the villagers towards him, links to his lack of company, links to the constant states of injury he was in when he dragged himself into the classroom. The moment she'd realized that because of the demon he was keeping in check, he was hated by everybody else for it, she'd begun to cry.

'_How can they treat him like that? He's not a bad person, they haven't even given him a chance! And he has a resolve to never give up… like when he beat Sasuke in that first taijutsu exercise… He didn't stop until he had proven that he was better… Why can't they see that side of him?'_

With tears dropping from her chin to the ground, she slowly walked over to the stunned Naruto, and slowly, hesitantly, extended her arms, until she was hugging him. Sensing no withdrawal on his part, she stayed like that for a few moments, for once, the ever present blush seeming to be nonexistent, as the girl attempted to comfort her devastated friend.

'_He's been alone all this time… because nobody gave him a chance… But I'll never do that! I'll always stay with him no matter what happens…'_

She looked at his face, a blank mask with shock and hurt plastered all over it. He was still sitting there, unmoving, unsure of what to do with himself. So she did the only thing she could, let him know that he'd always have a friend.

"Naruto…"

His head turned, blue eyes rotating to meet her own ones, the only indication that he'd heard her speak.

"I promise… you'll never be alone again… I'll always stay with you…"

There was no stutter in her words, just like her encounter with Sakura, this was not a time for her to be a victim to her own insecurities.

The boy's eyes widened momentarily, and then closed again. When he spoke, this time he was the one with a shaky voice.

"T-thank you… Hinata…"

Finally unable to hold it in any longer, he puller her into a closer embrace, and burying his head on her shoulder, began sobbing uncontrollably. Slightly surprised, but glad that he confided in her, a few more tears streamed down the Hyuuga girl's face, as she set her mouth in a determined line.

'_I promise Naruto… I'll never leave you.'_


	11. Training

As the Chuunin teacher walked back into the classroom after dismissing everybody, he'd been surprised by Sasuke's presence at the front desk where he normally sat. It was then that he remembered he'd requested for both Naruto and the Uchiha child to remain behind. One of whom he'd just given permission to go home early… Taking a seat beside Sasuke, he made a mental note to bring up the same talk with Naruto later in his private instruction on the transformation and cloning jutsus. But for now, he'd deal with this boy's behaviour.

"Alright Sasuke. I'm sure you know why you're here. That scorch, as I said earlier, could only come from a fire style jutsu. I know for a fact that none of the other instructors have been in the academy area since the previous lesson, so it must have been one of the students, and the only genins ever capable of using fire jutsus were from the Uchiha clan. What I want to know is why."

A simple grunt and slightly hateful gaze later, the Uchiha gave a reply.

"Because I was fighting Naruto."

Iruka sighed – this was going to take longer than he thought, if Sasuke continued to act in this manner.

"I'm well aware that you were fighting with Naruto. That wasn't my question. I meant why you would use a fire jutsu on one of your classmates, another genin! It's luck that Naruto even made it out alive. What drove you to seek him out and challenge him, and then pull off a move that would threaten his life?"

To this question, the boy had no answer, at least, not a verbal one anyway. As he stared back at his sensei trying to think up a reasonable excuse, one thought was resonating across his skull, repeating itself over and over.

'_Because he's the dead last and I'M the top of the class! The genius of this generation of genin! I can't be beaten by him!'_

But even as he tried to follow this train of thought, his mind drifted back to the memory of the fight, straight after Hinata had leapt into the way of his fireball jutsu. That explosion of chakra… that blue cloak around Naruto… the sheer amount of power radiating from him… Sasuke knew that his maximum capacity of chakra would never come close to the amount he'd felt coming out of the blonde in the few seconds he'd had to observe him… Was he really at the bottom? Or had he misjudged…

'_Where did you get that power Naruto… What have you been hiding…'_

Realizing that Iruka-sensei was still waiting for an answer, he tried to cover up the real reason, that he'd sought out Naruto to fight because he'd been jealous of him.

"No reason. I just wanted to test my skills out against somebody, and Naruto just happened to be there. That's all."

The instructor wasn't convinced, but decided to let it go this time. However, he made another mental note, to keep an eye on both of the boys to make sure another fight didn't break out.

'_Don't forget Sasuke… I witnessed your first fight in the village. I'm not about to let this go from that excuse…'_

"Alright then. I'll ignore your behaviour this time, but be warned, if you decide to pick any unnecessary fights again, we'll have you suspended from the academy."

'_You might be from one of the founding clans of the Hidden Leaf village, but you're the only one left. The clan has prestige, but no authority. Remember that Sasuke...'_

Dismissing the boy with a vague wave of his hand, Iruka began walking over to the Hokage's office building. He had some important issues he needed to discuss.

A boy sat on a familiar looking swing tied to an old tree, once again looking at the families on the street in front of him walk by. His face was a pool of conflicting emotions, and his normally bright blue eyes cast towards the ground, in a despondent manner. Naruto once again sat on the swing when he'd been alone, still struggling to come to terms with the fact that he, the one who wanted to become the Hokage at some point, had the spirit of a demon, which had a few years ago, attacked this village, and caused considerable chaos all over it.

'_How am I supposed to show them that I want to help the village, when years ago, this damn fox thing tried to destroy it? No wonder they hate me… they must think I'm the fox or something… Stupid villagers…'_

But the problem still remained, that with such a thing sealed within him, and such hatred from the rest of the village there was little to no chance of any support for him as a ninja, let alone the title of Hokage. What could he do to make them see? That he wasn't the demon? That he was Naruto Uzumaki, another ninja in training who was willing to protect the village?

"**Just do exactly what they don't want you to do. Become a ninja, one of the greatest. Learn as much as you can, train as much as you can, show them all what your best is."**

At this, he jumped, startled – not only had that been some sort of weird deep voice that wasn't his own, it had definitely not been his own thoughts, questions in the mind didn't answer themselves like that straight away! But again, he was in no state to contemplate where this strange voice was coming from. At that moment, he'd been desperate for an answer, and one had been provided to him. With a new purpose in mind, he jumped off the swing, and climbed up onto the nearest rooftop, leaping from each one in the direction of the Hokage's building.

"Yes, I believe that a meeting with you personally, as well as some further explanation would be most helpful for him," said Iruka, sitting at the Hokage's desk, speaking to the man in question. Sarutobi paused for a moment, rerunning his mind through the events Iruka had just relayed to him. Hinata had stumbled across Naruto's red chakra during a class exercise with her Byakugan, and as a result, the Chuunin before him had been forced to tell both of them of its origins. Based on what Iruka had told him, both children had handled it surprisingly well, although Naruto still seemed a bit shell shocked. The old man also frowned at the events between the blonde, and that unpleasant Uchiha child, which had occurred. The rivalry which he might have encouraged, had escalated to a point where Sasuke had challenged Naruto to a fight, one that could have potentially resulted in a politically detrimental death. Unlike Iruka, he knew exactly what'd happened, thanks to the use of his crystal ball which he was able to use to glimpse at other areas of the village. He'd seen the first heir to the Hyuuga clan push herself into the way of the fireball, and had held his breath until seeing the healing effect that Naruto's chakra had created upon contact with her. But that fight had gone too far, the dangers had come too close for comfort.

'_I hope Sasuke has come to his senses, after witnessing Naruto's bloodline ability, as well as Iruka's talks. I suppose it's up to me to do the same for Naruto.'_

"Speak of the devil…" he chuckled, as he looked out the window to see a rapidly approaching orange blur, which soon hurtled through the open space straight into his desk with a none too healthy sounding thump.

Rubbing his head gingerly, a sheepish grin on display, and the blankness in his eyes gone, the blonde turned to face the third Hokage.

"Ah, perfect timing Naruto," said Sarutobi. Seeing the puzzled look flash across his face, the old man elaborated.

"I was just about to send Iruka to find you and bring you here. It's time we had a little talk about the events which recently occurred between you and Sasuke Uchiha."  
Guessing where this conversation was headed, Naruto quickly tried to explain.

"It wasn't my fault I swear! He's the one who challenged me to a fight and I couldn't really say no! I didn't mean for Hinata to get hurt!"

He wouldn't really be able to explain, if asked, how he thought that Sarutobi already knew about Hinata being burnt, the old man just had a way of knowing these things. The reply was as expected, one reprimanding him on his behaviour, but what surprised him after the behaviour lecture was the following words from the third Hokage's mouth.

"Naruto, let me tell you a little more about Sasuke's situation, and perhaps you'll understand that the two of you are not that different."

'_Huh? But he's from one of those massive clan thingies! There's no way that he's like me!'_

"You see, it is true that by blood and origin, he is from the Uchiha clan, one of the two founding clans of this village. However, that clan is practically no more. He is the only one left. A few years ago, his brother, who was at the time one of our top ANBU Black Ops members, massacred his entire clan, leaving none of the Uchiha's alive except for himself and Sasuke. Now, Sasuke lives essentially on his own, tending to his own household, with nobody else to help him, much like you. Whilst I admit that his living conditions are nothing like yours, losing one's family, because of family, is difficult. Try to understand that in this way, he's no different from you."

Naruto still wasn't going to accept it so easily. Not after the way he and Hinata had been treated by Sasuke. He'd looked down on them, thought of himself as completely superior to them. How was he going to let that go?

"Just because he's alone, doesn't mean he has to be such a jerk. I mean look at me. I'm not like that!"

'_Well thank goodness for that,'_ thought the Hokage, before he spoke again.

"Listen, you're only the way you are, because you had people like myself, Iruka, and that nice man who runs Ichiraku's Ramen, people who honestly cared for you. To Sasuke, his brother was that person. So when that very person killed his family, and the rest of his clan, well… this kind of emotional response can only be expected. Think about it. If Iruka and I were to suddenly abandon you, how would you feel?"

The boy did as he was told, bring one hand up to his chin and searching through his mind for the answer, what would his reaction be? Grudgingly, unable to find any other solution, he acknowledged that he'd probably be the same, although he'd still have Hinata as a friend.

'_But I guess Sasuke doesn't have someone like that, and none of those fan girls of his really count as friends, I think he finds them annoying anyway… I know that I would…'_

When Naruto nodded to show he understood, the old man smiled, and continued.

"But I'm sure that you didn't come here for a lecture about you and Sasuke. And I have a feeling I know the reason for your arrival. Here, take these, they'll help you with your chakra control. After you've managed to master the techniques, I'll give you some jutsu scrolls instead of exercises."

He tossed four scrolls to the eager blonde boy, who after snatching them out of the air, jumped back out the window, leaping again from roof to roof.

'_That boy… there's no doubt that he'll become one of this village's finest ninja.'_

Naruto wasted no time in finding a secluded, open area, and unrolling one of the scrolls. He read out the title and instructions out loud.

"Tree Walking. Enhances chakra capacity and control. Locate a tree and climb up using only your feet. Focus your chakra to your feet to 'stick' to its surface, and walk up as far as you can. Use something to mark your progress. Practice running and jumping whilst sideways on the trunk, and with various thicknesses of trunks and branches whilst performing this exercise."

Imprinted on the scroll were a few pictures, of a figure walking up and down effortlessly, even hanging upside down on a branch. The boy's trademark grin reappeared, as he imagined the possibilities of being able to do such a thing.

'_Hehehe… I can do the same thing on the sides of building and everything, and it'll be really handy in the taijutsu sparring that our instructor said was coming up…'_

Filled with determination and enthusiasm to get this technique down by the end of the day, he headed towards the nearest tree, giving a loud cry as he did so, and began running up its side. Two seconds later, he was lying on the broken trunk of a tree on the opposite side of the clearing, with the one he'd attempted to climb up now a cluster of splinters scattered in the grass.

'_Ow… This situation seems all too familiar…' _he thought to himself, remembering the destruction of the wooden walls at the academy.

'_Ok… both Hinata and Iruka-sensei told me that I lacked chakra control, and that I was using too much in each attempt at a jutsu or technical exercise. I just gotta make sure that I don't put too much chakra into each leg.'_

Getting up and brushing himself off, he tried imagining an absolute minimal flow of chakra to his legs, and stepped forward again. This time, the sudden impact from being thrown backwards rapidly, which he had half expected to happen, didn't. Instead, he could feel a slight pulling force acting on his body, pulling him towards the tree trunk, as it took a greater effort to try and pull his leg away. However, his moment of triumph was short lived – the moment that his entire weight was dependent on that foot, it slipped, leaving him to land head first onto the ground.

'_Ugh… this might take a while… And that's just for a tree of this size… I'm going to really hate the part of the exercise where I change trees… And running and jumping? Forget a while… this is going to take forever!'_

"Hah!"

Hinata gave out another cry as she struck at the wooden target in front of her, fingers seeming to barely brush its surface, but leaving a sinister looking crack in its trail. Relaxing her arms, then striking forward with a palm, the process repeated, a deceptively harmless shove with the hand, this punching a hole through the wood, in the perfect shape of her hand. Turning quickly, she gave a spinning back kick to the post's midsection, not letting up in her attack pattern. Although it was now the two day rest period, in which most of the villagers would stop working, and there was no ninja academy classes, she had to continue training. Firstly, she knew about what life as a ninja would hold, constant threats would be surrounding the village, constant demands for ninja services would be made from other hidden villages or areas, and essentially, in a ninja's life, there was no two day rest. Secondly, it was necessary for her as the clan heir, although based on her father's criticizing gaze, probably not for much longer, to train endlessly in her family's art, the Gentle fist taijutsu style. And thirdly, it was because of a promise she'd made to herself, when she'd made a promise to Naruto. When she'd told him that she would never leave him alone, she had also resolved to train until she could help protect him, from threats who would seek the nine tailed fox's power, or villagers trying to attack him.

'_No matter how long it takes, or how hard it seems…'_ she thought, leaping forward with two fingers raised.

'_I'll help to protect you… Naruto…'_

Unknown to Hinata, Hiashi stood watching from his study, using his Byakugan to observe her training. A sad smile found its way to his face, as he once again resisted the urge to go and praise his eldest daughter for her achievements, and sighing, he turned away, the protruding veins around his eyes and temples disappearing as he did so.

'_Was this really what you wanted? For Hinata to be isolated from the family like this? For her to grow up without the support of her father? It just doesn't seem right…'_

His mind wandered to the memory of that one fateful night, in which his wife had been taken from this world and passed on into the next. It'd been a pleasant enough day, the arrival of his second daughter, Hanabi Hyuuga, had just come to be, and all seemed well in the household, with the arrival of a new main family member. That was until, he'd received word from the Hyuuga medical facility. That his wife had been exhausted by the birth, and was now dying. He'd rushed immediately to her room, and was shocked by her thin, frail appearance, the extreme pallor of her skin (more so than what was normal, even for her), and the look of utter exhaustion on her face. The next few days afterwards had been the worst of his life, constantly visiting her, not being able to do anything to help, except keep her company, until she died. But before she did, she made him promise something, something that she'd stated to be of the utmost value to her.

"Please… see to it that Hinata becomes strong… She's a good girl, very shy, but always with good intentions… But for her to be a ninja, she has to have a better cause to fight, to fight for someone or something… and not show the unnecessary mercy against the enemy like she does now to her training opponents… Promise me… that you'll make sure she'll be the best kunoichi she can…"

It'd all seemed a little strange to Hiashi at the time, an extremely peculiar and confusing request, in that it was difficult to understand, but with his wife on her deathbed, he had no choice but to accept, and give his word to fulfill whatever it was she'd asked of him. But now…

'_Now I am not so sure that I interpreted your intentions properly. My attempt was to remove any signs of approval from me, to her, so that her purpose, would be to fight for it, and that this way, she would become stronger. But I never considered that it'd have this effect on her, that it'd make it somewhat worse… She's still just as shy, if not more, and the only times I've been able to see her train properly was using my Byakugan, when against wooden dummies… Was I wrong in my judgement?'_

Exiting his study quickly, Hiashi walked to the room where Hinata was training. Immediately, her focus dropped, her stance wavered, and her eyes filled with fear and sadness.

"Hinata… you should take a break… Don't overwork yourself ok?"

That was all he could manage, before walking out of the room again. It hurt him, to see his own daughter afraid of him, of her father. But what was worse, was that he knew two things, first, that he had failed the promise he'd made to his wife, and second, that her fear, was entirely his fault.

'_Yes… there can be no doubt about it. I was definitely wrong. But now it's time to make things right.'_

Even the Hyuuga clan head has to cry sometimes. And this was one of those times, as he filled himself with resolve, a few tears trickling down from his eyes, not knowing, that just a few rooms away, Hinata was doing the same.


	12. Promises

'_Ow…'_

The blonde slowly picked himself out of the pile of wood, glaring at the much thinner tree he'd just attempted to climb. He'd just learnt the hard way, that a shifting amount of chakra would be required to climb smaller trees, and that he'd somehow have to vary the amount of the stuff he was pouring into his feet when attempting to run up and down. Naruto had been going at this exercise for almost half a day now, with the only break being after the first few hours, to get a quick meal of cup ramen in, before resuming it. He'd managed to master walking up and down trees of all sorts, and even hanging upside down for short periods of time. But running was still not coming easily to him. But if that was going to stop him… then well… it wasn't going to! Focusing more chakra to his feet, he selected another tree and slowly placed a foot onto it, just preparing to raise his other leg off the ground, when he suddenly became aware of a lack of energy.

'_?'_

Concentrating again, he tried to redirect the energy from his body into his feet, and with some degree of surprise, found that he couldn't.

'_Uh oh… this happened before… and Hinata said it meant I'd run out of chakra… Which means I'm about to – "_

The boy never managed to finish the thought, and he collapsed, body folding like a rag doll before it hit the ground, leaving him lying there in a slightly curled up fashion.

Back at his office, Sarutobi sighed, as another one of those strangely conspicuous sweat drops slid down the side of his head. He'd been observing Naruto's progress for well… the last twelve hours, and was amazed at how long he was able to keep it up. The old man remembered back to the times when he was a genin, and his first attempt at the tree climbing exercise. He'd only been able to attempt it for about ten minutes before he had fallen victim to chakra exhaustion, just as the blonde had just done so after a ridiculously longer time.

'_In fact… I'm not even sure I could do what Naruto had just managed now, even though I'm the Hokage…'_

"Hm…" he sighed.

"They just seem to grow and surpass us way too fast, even in ways like this…"

Hinata lay on her bed, absolutely exhausted. Back in the training room, she'd left a shamble of random hand shaped blocks of wood, or remains of dummies with multiple finger-sized holes drilled into them. A few of the lucky ones had gotten away with a few chunks that were suspiciously similar sized to the width of her foot and ankle. But after just one and a half hours, her chakra had begun to run out, and she had deactivated her Byakugan to conserve it. Half an hour later, it was only determination for her secret promise to Naruto that kept her going. Yet another hour after that, she was staggering to her room, falling onto the bed and unable to get up. And now, she was still here, not feeling much more energetic than before, and now with an accompanying hunger in her stomach. But meal time was still three hours away, and her father would be furious with her if she tried to get anything to eat any earlier than the designated time. The last attempt Hinata had made, she'd been forced to spar against Neji, a cousin from the main branch, for a double training session, and sent to her room without any food for the remainder of the day.

'_And I don't really know my way around the village that well, aside from getting to the academy and back from here… Otherwise I'd just go to that nice Ramen place which Naruto always seems to talk about…'_

A knock on the door surprised her, to an extent that she forgot about her empty stomach, at least, for a few seconds. Activating her bloodline ability to see who the person was before she opened her door, Hinata received her second surprise, her father was standing outside with a tray of some sort. Upon identifying that it was indeed, her father who was there, she immediately dashed towards the door, jumping over a few bits of clothing in the way, not wanting to keep him waiting. Opening it, she got her third surprise. Hiashi was standing there, with a nervous expression on his face, and his eyes kept darting away from his first daughter – usually the situation was the other way around! And he was holding a tray of food! Extremely confused, Hinata looked up at her father, who, sensing her question, began to speak.

"I… thought that you would need some food, after your training. Don't worry, you'll still be allowed to attend the meal in a few hours time."

Hinata slowly took the tray from him, her mind reeling, was this actually happening? Was her father showing some signs of compassion?

"I saw the training room."

Her face fell, ready to receive the berating that would surely come about the condition she'd left it in, or her unwillingness to fight with opponents who were her friends or companions within the clan.

"I'm… impressed with your progress. Keep it up."

That was all that Hiashi could manage, as he pushed out the words awkwardly from his mouth, before stiffly turning and walking out the doorway, leaving his daughter standing open-mouthed and wide eyed at the door, who continued to do so until the smell of the food on the tray enticed her to move to her desk and start eating.

"Fire Style – Fireball Jutsu!"

Sasuke took a deep breath as he cupped his hand around his mouth, and exhaled, letting loose a ball of flame which instantly incinerated the tree in front of him. Unsatisfied, he ignored the pile of burning wood, and turned away to another one.

"Fire Style – Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

This time a stream of multiple small fireballs erupted from his mouth, hiding the row of wooden blocks which he had set up. With this jutsu, he seemed satisfied, and began walking back to his home, finished with his ninjutsu training.

'_Until the academy decides to teach us more jutsu, then I'll have to just stick to my clan's fire style ones. That pathetic transformation and clone jutsu are of no use, they're much too weak. The fact that those fan girls can pull it off is proof of that.'_

Entering the large, but empty manor, he went through a few hand signs, ending with the tiger seal, and performed another fireball, this time onto a statue in front of the door. As the stone heated up, the front door slowly began to open, creaking as it did so, until it stayed, completely open, the stone statue now red hot and glowing. Sasuke stepped inside, not bothering to cool the statue back down to close the door. Nobody came around here anyway, it was virtually unheard of for anybody to enter the Uchiha compound, aside from the Hokage who constantly checked to make sure the place was maintained properly. Continuing through the hallway, he turned to the right, opening a door to find a dojo style room filled with wooden dummies stacked up against the right wall. Smiling in his grim and completely emotionless way, Sasuke set up three of the dummies, and began his taijutsu training.

'_I'll train till I'm definitely the best, until nobody can surpass me. Especially not you Naruto. You may have that bloodline, but it's not going to stop me from getting stronger…'_

Then he remembered his talk with Iruka-sensei.

'… _But I won't look down at you anymore… You've proven twice to be at least my equal, and once to have surpassed me… So if I can train to be better than you, then there is little doubt that I can destroy my brother and avenge my clan…'_

With his goal in mind, he resumed training, legs and arms getting a slightly blurry and fuzzy outline, due to the speed at which he was moving.

'_Itachi… I'll get you…'_

Wearily, the blonde boy pulled himself to his feet, staggering in the general direction of his apartment. Too tired to notice the glares and looks shot in his direction from the civilians and some of the ANBU around the village, he kept the main goal in mind, to go home, where hopefully, he could get something to eat.

'_Need food…'_

His hand brushed against something in his side pocket as he swung them around randomly in his slow trudge to his apartment, and he froze, a smile forming as he pulled it out, his wallet with a significant amount of money in it.

'_Hehehehe…'_

Changing his direction, he began forcing his body towards Ichiraku's Ramen stand. Who knew, maybe the old man there would give him a few free bowls before he had to start paying for the rest.

'_Must… have… Ramen…'_

He pulled himself up onto a seat, and shouted out.

"Hey old man! Gimme seven bowls to start with, and keep another 5 ready to go!"

Hearing the man's laugh from the kitchen area, he fidgeted around in his seat, anxious to get started. He could have jumped with joy when his first bowl came, the only things stopping him being the fact that it would have further delayed the time to his next meal, and that he no longer had the actual energy left to do so. Licking his lips, he grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the container off to the side and prying them apart, began shoveling the noodles into his mouth at what appeared to be a rather unhealthy rate. However, given the amount of time he'd been eating ramen like this, and the amounts of ramen he ate each time, there appeared to be no negative lasting effects. Ploughing through the first bowl, the blonde paused momentarily to lift it up and pour its remaining contents down his throat, before reaching for the next one in line on the counter not even bothering to look down at it. With expert hands, he repeated the process, lifting it up, causing the liquid and noodles to slide rapidly into his mouth, going to some sort of unknown location which apparently never filled up. But Naruto remained oblivious to his strange eating habits, all he was thinking of was how good the ramen tasted, especially since he'd been starving when he had begun to eat.

'_Mmmm… Ramen… Yay…'_

When he was finally done eating, he emptied out about half his frog wallet onto the counter, and after a thanks and a 'come back soon' from both Teuchi and his daughter Ayami, he left, patting his slightly bloated stomach and ready for some more training.

'_I don't really feel like doing water walking right away… I just mastered tree climbing… Yea… gotta take a break from all that chakra control stuff… Maybe I'll just work on taijutsu instead.'_

His mind made up, the blonde slowly walked in the direction of another good training area he knew of, one with lots of sturdy trees to kick and punch at for practice. When he got there, he selected a tree at random, and simply began throwing blows at it, not in any particular style, or with any particular precision, just randomly waving his arms and legs at it until they made contact. And he seemed quite proud of himself too, the tree had a few dents in it. But before his ego super-inflated itself, he thought back to his fight with Sasuke, in the academy. He hadn't told Hinata or anybody else, but he felt an unbearable guilt for what had happened.

'_She got hurt trying to protect me… Because I couldn't protect myself…'_

"I'm going to get stronger! Believe it!" he shouted out, and at that moment, made a silent promise to himself.

'_I'll get stronger… so that one day, I can return the favour. I'll protect her!'_

This momentary lapse in his training made him actually stop and think about what he was doing.

'_Back in my fight with Sasuke… He had me pretty much beat with taijutsu AND ninjutsu… If it weren't for my bloodline, I would have lost. Old man Hokage says that he's gonna give me some pretty cool ninjutsu to work on, so I guess I'll need to focus more on my own taijutsu. Now lets see… That instructor we had in the first lesson took us through individual techniques…'_

Turning so that he was side on to the tree, he began raising his leg and kicking out, in a basic side kick motion. Naruto repeated this process until the muscles near his hip were spasming and burning, at which point he turned and began doing the same thing with his left leg.

'_This may be boring, but I've gotta perfect these. If it's the only way for me to get better at taijutsu, I'll do it, no matter how hard it seems, because that's the only way for me to keep my promise!'_

Finishing with the other leg, he turned to face the trunk front on and started a series of straight punches.

"Are you all right Hinata?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Very well, let us continue. Begin!"

The Hyuuga instructor standing on the opposite side of the training room lunged forward, arms blurring in a series of strikes, each one just as quick as the last. Retreating slightly, Hinata brought her arms up, diverting the blows away from her centre, before rushing forward in an attempt to finish the spar quickly. Her opponent met her outstretched hand with a palm strike of his own, and a momentary blue flash appeared between the hands, where the point of contact would have been, before each one was thrown back a few feet. The girl breathed heavily before rushing forward again, feinting a high blow before spinning out with her foot. This time the strike caught the other Hyuuga in the chest, and he cried out, falling backwards before landing on the floor. Struggling to get up, he winced slightly as his arm gave way and caused him to fall again. Before he could make another attempt, a clapping sound stopped him, and both Hyuuga's in the training room looked towards the doorway in surprise, to see Hiashi there, clapping at the spar, and smiling at his daughter.

"I think that'll be enough for now. Hinata, you're free to go wherever you wish, provided that you are back in time for the evening meal. You've done well."

'_She overcame her shyness and decided to start sparring with other clan members after a little encouragement… perhaps this is what my wife really meant in that promise…'_

Seeing his daughter's surprise, he smiled again to try and show that he was not plotting anything sinister for her when she got back, and walked out. Hinata, to say the least, was very surprised. Her father had been acting… different lately. Not that she was complaining of course, but it all seemed rather new to her, the friendliness, the sudden encouragement, the freedom he was now offering her.

'_It wouldn't have happened without you Naruto… If I hadn't met you, then I wouldn't be getting this change from my father.'_

Bowing to her sparring partner, she ran out of the room, a huge smile on her face, as she headed towards the front gate, with her destination already in mind.

'_And with any luck, I'll see Naruto there too.'_

The same blonde in question was, as always, at the exact place she was headed to. Yes, once again, after a grueling training, Naruto was eating more Ramen at the Ichiraku ramen stand. His hands were bleeding, his trousers torn at the edges, a few bruises visible on his arms, and his face wasn't exactly the cleanest look around either – dust was covering it in some sort of mask, that looked as thought the slightest movement would send it toppling into his food. But not a speck of it fell into its ramen, clearly the dust knew what its fate would be if it ruined the boy's meal. As he ate, the pile of bowls beside him slowly grew, first just one lonesome one on its own, then two, then four, and suddenly ten. The eleventh was just about to have its contents emptied and join the other ten, when Naruto heard a familiar sound behind him, something like someone suddenly taking in a deep breath. Smiling, and not bothering to turn around, he called out.

"Hey Hinata, how's it going?"

The girl who was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to partially conceal herself behind one of the wooden posts, relented and walked into the stand timidly, taking a seat next to the blonde boy, and a bright red face the whole time.

'… _when I was thinking that with luck I'd see Naruto here… I didn't think he'd ACTUALLY be here… What should I say? What should I do? I can't think of anything!'_ she thought in a mild panic.

She quickly became self aware of his gaze on her, causing the red phenomenon that appeared below her cheeks even more prominent, and her eyes darted around, searching for an escape, eventually settling on a gaze at the counter in front of her when they found none.

"Um… I've b-been well…"

She ordered a bowl of beef ramen, and began to eat slowly, occasionally nodding at Naruto's description of his two days, how he'd been training, grimacing at his falls off the tree, laughing at a few of them, and smiling at his success and resolve for taijutsu training. But she was forced to answer, in a rather flustered manner, when he asked her to train with him.

"Hey… since you know a bunch of your clan techniques… could you uh… train with me from time to time? And you know… show me a few things if I'm doing them wrong?"

"Um… s-sure. F-father is giving m-me a lot m-more free t-time now… so I c-can help almost everyday," she managed to get out, before ducking her head down to try and give her blush time to fade away, which that short moment of eye contact had caused to rise again.

His resulting grin however, made her feel that all the embarassmen was worth it, as his eyes lit up with his smile, and he bounced off his seat enthusiastically.

"Great! Lets go now then!"

He took out his frog wallet again, this time placing twelve free ramen coupons onto the counter, before grabbing her hand and racing off to his previous training site. Red. Face. Cheeks. The instantaneous reaction was unquestionable. But it was a few moments later, still being pulled along by the boy she harboured feelings for, that she realized he'd also placed a coupon down for her bowl…


	13. The Results of Training

"So I was working on my taijutsu drills like I told you, and I discovered something awesome!" shouted Naruto excitedly, as he pulled the girl into the training area.

"Honestly, you've got to see this! It'll definitely give me the edge over Sasuke!"

Taking her slight nod and poking fingers as a sign to continue, he headed over to one of the trees, preparing to launch a kick at it. He remembered back to when he'd come across this style, one which he was sure nobody else had ever used.

_He had just managed to make another tree explode whilst trying to climb up it, and was lying down on his back, when the thought came to him – what would happen if all that chakra which could shatter a tree trunk on contact, hit a person in a battle? Grinning, Naruto swung his foot experimentally at the nearest tree, concentrating a portion of his chakra to his leg as he did so, and…_

The tree trunk was carved clean through as his leg headed towards it, beginning to crack even before the limb actually made contact with it.

"See? The chakra looks like it acts as a knife or something, or brute force on the end of my leg, and pretty much breaks through anything. I think I'll make it my own style! But you gotta promise not to tell anyone else about it, I want to keep it a secret until I have to use it, ok?"

Hinata nodded, muttering a quick promise not to let his discovery slip, although her mind wasn't really on it. She had activated her Byakugan to observe what made his taijutsu different from conventional ones, as his stance, as well as the motion, had looked like the normal things they were taught in the academy. But she'd been absolutely shocked by the sheer amount of chakra put into his leg, it was like a block, a solid opaque blue colour in her line of vision, showing how densely the chakra was compressed at that point. Her amazement had not stopped there – her eyes had also noted what had occurred when he'd kicked the tree, the chakra had shifted its shape to form a double edged blade around his leg, which had sliced across the wood, as well as driving the kick with almost four times the normal speed.

"Um… t-that's amazing Naruto… M-my c-clan has something s-similar t-to that… We use c-chakra in our attacks… B-but it's only t-to strike internal organs or h-hit chakra points… N-nothing like what you just managed t-to do…"

Seeing him light up at her praise, and comparison to her clan, Hinata couldn't help but smile back. But she was curious about the shape which his chakra had taken, and decided to ask him about it.

"Naruto… Um… w-when you hit the t-tree… d-did you mean t-to shape your chakra into a blade?"

His look of confusion was obviously signifying 'no' as an answer.

"Well… I t-think if you can c-control your chakra better… you'll also b-be able to shape it any way y-you want…"

Naruto gave it some thought, and seeing the great uses that this ability could have, as well as the general increase in his chakra control, began laughing.

"Haha! Man Hinata, you're the best! You've always got the most awesome ideas for training!"

The blush that appeared then, was nothing compared to the one that appeared after Naruto grabbed her hand, raised them high into the air, and shouted out "Together we're gonna become the most awesome shinobi in the Hidden Leaf Village!"

He didn't realize that she'd fainted until he received no response for a few minutes.

"Um… Hinata?"

'_What? Again? Seriously, aren't the doctors giving her any medicine for her fever? Maybe I should tell her dad, that'll get them to hurry up and do it. After all, they can't deny one of the big clans, can they?'_

Picking her up, he began walking to the Hyuuga area of the village, still thinking about what Hinata had told him about chakra shaping as he did so.

Hiashi shook his head and sighed, as the blonde boy in front of him bowed slightly, and left. This boy… he'd just turned up on the Hyuuga doorstep carrying his daughter in his arms, who appeared to have passed out, with remnants of red on her face, and advised him to personally request the medic ninjas for fever medicine because obviously they hadn't given it to her yet.

'_He's even worse than Minato was… Honestly… medicine for a fever? There isn't a fever out there that can cause spontaneous spouts of fainting, nor leave a constant red flush that appears and disappears in the presence of SPECIFIC PEOPLE! How clueless some people are…'_

Picking up his first daughter, Hiashi carried her to her bedroom and laid her down, closing the door behind him.

'_Although… despite this apparent density surrounding his head area… You've made a good choice Hinata…'_

As he walked out into the hallway, an image of a man shrouded in a blue chakra cloak shaped like a fox with nine tails, flashed across his memory, and he smiled.

'_A very good choice…'_

Wearily, Naruto opened the door to his apartment, and sighed as he took in the set of footprints left in the dust, the now broken bathroom door, and the multiple cracks across the floor.

'_Looks like the villagers have decided to come back again…'_

Resigning himself to the inevitable, he began cleaning up, pushing the broken pieces of wood out the door and off the edge of the balcony, trying to straighten what was left of the door, and placing rags over the cracks.

'_I might be able to avoid their beatings now… but they still find more ways to hassle me… Can't they see that I'm not the damn fox? Why did it have to invade anyway!'_

His thoughts started turning to anger, the happiness at the results at his training fading away, as his resentment to the villagers returned.

"**I can answer that…"**

The deep and unknown voice returned, and this time, Naruto actually was in a state to comprehend the fact that it wasn't his own, and it definitely wasn't from his own mind. Although shocked, he was quickly able to draw conclusions, based on the fact that he knew he had something with a conscious mind sealed within him, and there was nobody else here.

"You're the nine tailed fox aren't you?" he spoke out loud. In response, he heard a deep laugh, and his vision was filled with a white light which slowly faded to reveal a dark damp place, with an endless tunnel behind him, and a large golden gate with a seal tag on it in front of him. A pair of red eyes appeared from the gloom behind the gate, catlike eyes, red irises with black slights instead of pupils. Slowly, the rest of it came into view, although the fox didn't appear to be moving. It seemed almost casual, lying down calmly, front paws beneath its chin, staring at the boy on the other side of the gate. Its nine tails were spread out, two on the floor behind it, the others waving idly around in the air. It grinned at Naruto, not threateningly either. The blonde was extremely confused – weren't demons supposed to be evil? Yet this one seemed too casual, too friendly.

"**I don't suppose you could remove that piece of paper from the gate could you? It's getting in the way of the view of this lovely… sewer..."**

Naruto's eyes moved up to where the paper was, and reading the sign written on it, saw that it read 'lock.'

'_That must be the seal that's keeping it in.'_

"Nice try… But there's no way that I'm letting you out. Not after what you did to the village the last time! And its because of you that everybody hates me!"

Another deep laugh was the response.

"**You don't know what really happened do you…"** Seeing the boy shake his head, the demon continued.

"**Whilst I won't say that I don't enjoy killing people… I had no intentions of attacking the Hidden Leaf Village. It was a member of that accursed Uchiha clan, who forced me to do it. That repulsive sharingan…"**

'_The Uchiha clan? But that's where Sasuke came from!'_

"What do you mean by the Uchiha clan forced you? Can their sharingan control people?"

"**I don't think you have to worry about Sasuke doing that to you… As far as I've seen from your mind, he hasn't even activated his Sharingan yet… However, if it were to develop its full capabilities, then that would be a different story. As for how I was forced to attack the village… I shall tell you another time…"**

The dark surroundings faded in a flash of white, and Naruto's consciousness returned to his body, and he stood up from his position on the floor, deep in thought.

'_I might not know exactly what happened… But the fox isn't as bad as people think it is… Its even helped me… If that was the voice I was hearing all those times…'_

Confused, he rolled over onto the pile of rags that served as his bed, and fell asleep, too tired from the day's events and training to think about it anymore.

Morning came quickly. Soon the unimpeded sunlight was once again pushing its way through the relatively square shaped hole in the side of the wall, which given a few panes of glass, would have been considered a window. By some instinct, Naruto woke up, still not fully alert, but up nonetheless, and pulled on some clothes, not his orange jumpsuit this time, nor his goggles, but an orange hoody with blue short sleeves, and some blue shorts. He'd managed to find these lying around in a garbage dump, and assuming that nobody wanted them, had taken the clothing for himself, washing them several times over in the nearby stream of course. He opened the cupboard, groaning as the sight of empty cups greeted him, mocking him with the fact that today, or at least, that morning, he would be having no ramen. He trudged over to the opposite cupboard and grabbed some bread and a cup of water, downing them both within seconds, before lazily making a hand sign and disappearing with a poof of smoke. In his place, was a piece of paper, one of the registration forms from the front desk. Needless to say, the chuunin at the entrance was quite surprised to see one of the two forms on his desk disappear, and replace itself with a flash of yellow, which also swiftly vanished.

"Must be seeing things… Have to take it easy on the work…" he muttered to himself, before fishing around for another form.

Meanwhile, Naruto was already walking into the classroom. As he did so, Iruka, who was already sitting at his desk, waved his hand in greeting, before turning down to his work again. He continued writing for a few more seconds, before he abruptly dropped the pen, and his breath caught in his mouth.

'_He's wearing something else other than that orange tracksuit? And he's not late? Has something happened?'_

"Iruka-sensei!" called out Naruto.

"What are we doing today? Are we sparring? Learning more jutsu? Chakra control?"

A flood of questions regarding the day's content erupted from the blonde's mouth, and the Chuunin shook his head trying to clear them, before attempting to answer.

"Well Naruto, I was planning on free sparring today and–"

"YAY!"

Iruka sighed, and mentally shook his head.

'_He sure seems eager today…'_

"Comeon Iruka-sensei, I want to get started right away!"

'_Perhaps a bit too eager…'_

"Um… Naruto… I'd like to start, but we can't actually do that until the rest of the class arrives…"

"Huh?"

Glancing around, Naruto's eyes widened, as his mind processed the picture of empty seats around him. Not even Sasuke, who was usually early due to his lack of anything better to do on academy days, was here yet! Shrugging his shoulders at his teacher sheepishly, who was still rather shocked at the boy's early arrival, he fell asleep with his head on the desk. When he woke up however…

"AHHHHHHHH!" he screamed, jumping onto the desk in an attempt to put some distance between them. He'd just woken up and looked to his left to see none other than Sasuke sitting there.

"What are you doing sitting up here? Aren't you usually… I dunno… a few rows that way?" he asked, pointing down to the front.

The reply was certainly not the stuck up one he expected.

"You don't mind, do you?" was what he heard, accompanied with a smile, not quite a friendly one, but not a sneer or arrogant expression either.

'_I think Sasuke hit his head or something… There's definitely something wrong here!'_

Ignoring it for the time being, although still feeling some residual creeps, Naruto looked to his right, smiling when he saw Hinata there.

"Hehe… Today's when we get to show everyone the results of our training on the two day break! We're gonna rock!"

Of course, the shy girl simply smiled back, before bowing her head, still unable to maintain eye contact for any longer without flushing red (although this time she'd managed to look at his face for the duration of his sentence!). The two looked towards the front, where Iruka was now dividing people into pairs.

"Now listen up class. There will be many situations where people will be watching you. Whilst as a ninja, these may not be as prominent, in things such as your Chuunin exams which are coming up in a few months after your graduation exam, as well as trials for higher ranks such as Jounin, or even ANBU, you will be expected to demonstrate your skill in front of many people. As a result, you are to sit next to your opponent, and each fight will commence one at a time, with everybody else watching."

The teacher looked around the room, almost smiling at the look of dread some of the children had, especially some of the fan girls.

'_This may be a bit sudden, but it's time those girls realize that they have to work on their skills rather than chase someone who pays no attention to them… And Naruto seems to enjoy it anyway… so it all works out nicely.'_

"First up, Sakura Haruno and Shikamaru Nara. Rules are simple. Either you knock out your opponent, or they surrender for you to win."

The pink haired girl jumped up eagerly, focusing her green gaze on Sasuke for what seemed an excessively long time, too long to simply be a glance, before turning to face her opponent…

… who seemed to be lying down, sleeping in front of her. A tick mark appeared on her head, and she let out a small rumble from her throat, a surprisingly menacing growl sound for a girl of her age, but nonetheless, seemed to work. Shikamaru, with some hint of fear in his eyes, got up, albeit still reluctantly.

'_Ah man… Why she's like a ferocious animal I'll never know… Girl's are such a drag… And now I just happen to be paired up to fight one… I don't really feel like moving… But if I don't fight her then she'll beat me up or Iruka-sensei's just going to get mad… Man… Life is such a drag sometimes…'_

Lazily, he positioned himself so that he was about two metres behind her, ignoring the weird look she was giving him, smiling when she stiffened and the expression turned to shock, and then started walking forwards. To the surprise of much of the class, she mimicked him, also walking forwards. He didn't stop as he neared the line of students watching, and neither did she. With a final sprint, Shikamaru dashed forward with a speed that didn't seem to match with his lazy character, and grinned as Sakura sprinted into the front row of academy desks. The shadow joining his feet to hers slowly retraced back to his own body, and lazily trudging back to the group of students, he lay down next to Choji, who patted his back in congratulations.

"Man…" muttered the Nara clan boy.

"That was such a drag…"

"Next! Hinata and Ino. Please step forward."

The blonde stood up, twirling around to nobody in particular a few times, with a smile on her face which bordered on arrogant, before stepping into the marker out rectangle fighting area on the ground. Hinata meanwhile, made a less confident approach, nervously stepping down the stairs from her desk to the rectangle and sweating slightly as she did so.

'_Ok… I can do this… I can do this… I'm not going to fail… It's time to show everyone what I was working on!'_

The two kunoichi stood at opposite ends, waiting for Iruka-sensei's signal for them to begin. When he did call the word, Ino instantly sprang forward, thinking that a quick punch to the other girl's head would do the job

'_Ha. Hinata's gotta be the shyest person I've ever known. There's no way she'll be able to take more than one hit.'_

She smiled as she felt her arm make contact, and opened her eyes, only to find a sudden pain run up the arm, as well as multiple strikes to her abdomen and chest, and finally, her arm firmly grasped by the other girl's hand. The strikes looked light and were similar to simple finger jabs, but left stinging sensations where they made contact. Without warning, Ino found herself on the ground, unable to move. Seeing the shy girl's concerned face looking down at her only made her angrier, and the blonde girl tried with everything she could to get at her, attack this non-Sasuke-lover who had somehow managed to defeat her.

'_How! She's supposed to be weak! She's always hanging around that weird Naruto kid! How can she be this much stronger than me?'_

Iruka, seeing that the blonde academy girl wasn't moving anytime soon, declared Hinata the winner, earning a series of cheers and applause from Naruto, whilst the rest of the class sat in silence, gawking at the Hyuuga girl.

'_I did it! And Naruto's cheering for me…'_

The mere sight and sound of his support was enough to make her face heat up, and this only rose as he smiled at her as he walked up to the ring, having heard his name called out. As they passed each other, he leaned over slightly.

"Hehe… nice one Hinata, that'll teach her to underestimate you! You've really been training hard as well haven't you?" he whispered into her ear. Attempting to contain the grin that threatened to spill over her facial expression, she settled for a smile and a nod, before returning to her previous seating position and turning her gaze towards the fight that was about to commence.

'_What?'_

Muttering could be heard around the class, most of it negatively directed at Naruto.

"Heh… Doesn't stand a chance… Too weak… Such a weirdo… No way he can win…"

The blonde boy dressed in the orange and blue hoody was standing opposite to Choji Akimichi, who looked, not unkindly, but not with a friendly expression either, back at him.

"Choji's from the Akimichi clan… That idiot doesn't stand a chance against him…" Hinata heard someone whisper, none too inconspicuously. Struggling against the urge to give that person a chakra enhanced slap to the face, she sat and watched the fight begin. Immediately, Choji yelled out "EXPANSION JUTSU!" rising to the size of a human dimension bowling ball, before starting to spin rapidly, heading towards his opponent. A sweat drop rolled down her face. Sure, she had faith in Naruto's abilities. But it seemed like he was terrified, just standing there, not even trying to get out of the way.

The Akimichi made contact with the boy, and rolled past the point where he'd been standing. A stunned silence followed. The spot where the 'bottom student' in the class was now empty, save a few whisps of smoke. All the students were looking around, confused, whilst Hinata sat there trying not to laugh, and Iruka was getting up from his desk with an angry expression on his face.

"Naruto! If you show such eagerness towards these sparring sessions, you may as well actually participate in them personally!"

Laughing could be heard, and the rest of the class gaped as a brown splotch on one of the desks moved, before the blonde boy revealed himself.

"Hehe! What do you think Iruka? I've got the clone jutsu down pretty well don't you think?"

A glare was all he got in return, and he immediately settled, stepping into the allocated sparring space. Choji stood there, with a slightly annoyed expression, waiting for him. They stood at opposite ends again. This time, Choji simply ran forward, not trying to reinitiate his human boulder jutsu, opting instead to take his opponent down with taijutsu. The rest of the class was shouting encouragement to the Akimichi, whilst paying no attention to Naruto.

"Get him Choji! Show him who the bottom student is!"

The first strike was thrown, and made impact. Straight into the larger boy's abdomen, where he doubled over, falling to the ground.

'_Ow… Probably should have listened to Dad… He said to respect everyone so that in an opposition you wouldn't underestimate them… And I still don't know how that happened… I was sure that I swung first!'_

"Comeon Choji… Even I know that a leg's longer than an arm…"

In the short amount of time that it had taken for Choji to raise his arm, Naruto had lifted his leg and executed a perfect front kick into the other boy's centre.

Hinata smiled at the shock filling the air around her from her sitting position, whilst the fan girls looked on wide eyed. Only Sasuke, who had since learned not to underestimate people, and Shikamaru, who appeared to be asleep, weren't staring blankly at the sudden display of skill.

Choji simply stood up.

"I'm hungry…" he muttered, before wondering off back to his seat, where a bag of chips popped into his hands.

Rather dumbfounded, Naruto followed.

'_Well jeez… I expected him to at least fight past the first blow… I didn't even kick him that hard!'_

He joined Hinata, and they both watched the next pair of fights proceed.

"Hey…"

"Yes?"

"You did a great job out there today."

"Um… thanks…"

Hinata inwardly cursed her inherent lack of ability to control her bodily blood flow as it all concentrated towards the region above her neck as she received the compliment.

"You did very well with as well Naruto… After all, you managed to beat him with only one strike! It took me about ten to take Ino down…"

Well that was one thing working in her favour. Talking to him was a bit more casual now, to the extent where the constant stutter was gone. Most of the time anyway. Although sometimes, if she accidentally thought about that time when he had tripped over and they had…

'_Oh my…'_

"So, Hinata, think you've got time to got to Ichiraku's stand with me before you go home? Your dad's giving you more free time now right?"

Naruto walked on a few steps when he received no response, used to her occasional silence by now.

'_Maybe it's just one of those things that she does, like that fidgety thing with her hands all the time. Wonder why she does that?'_

But after hearing no footsteps behind him, which should have been clearly audible on the gravelly ground, he turned around, and sighed with slight exasperation as he saw her motionless body lying at a peculiar angle on the ground, the typical red flushed face present, and a few drops of perspiration on her skin.

'_Ugh… Next time I'll personally take her to the medic-nins if they don't fix her up this time… Jeez… you'd think they could get something as simple as a fever cured in no time…'_

Picking her up, he began walking. But this time, it wasn't to the Hyuuga property.

'_Hehehe… Dinner, here I come! I'm sure Hinata will want some ramen when she wakes up…'_

Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled as he turned away from his crystal ball at the sight of the two.

'_I wish the two of them would hurry up and grow older already. It's as good as the matchup between Minato and Kushina if not even better… All there is that's stopping them is time… Perhaps I can help speed things along a bit…'_

A strangely lecherous grin, unbefitting to that of a Hokage spread across his old skin, and he pulled out a piece of paper, marking the top with the title 'New Genin Graduate Team Arrangements.'

"Hehehehehehe…"

**My apologies for the late update. I've been bombarded with exams and assignments lately, but things should be more free now that its all over. To compensate, I've tried to make this chapter longer. By the way, if you found the third hokage's behaviour at the end disturbing, its my attempt (fail) at some comic relief. Review :D**


	14. Preparations

"Hey old man! Gimme a few bowls of the house special!"

Naruto paused.

"And get a few more for Hinata here."

"Huh? Hinata? Wasn't that the girl who was with you the last time you were here?"

The boy laughed and nodded, smiling at the unconscious girl beside him.

"Yep. She's pretty much the only friend I've got at the moment, but she's really nice to me so I don't mind not having any others."

He went on a small ramble about the things Hinata had done for him, such as the time when she'd lent him some pen and paper in class, when she'd accepted him when he met her for the first time… He would have gone on, but was interrupted by Teuchi.

"Hold on… How come she's unconscious? Did you just drag her in here? What happened?"

The blonde's smile faded slightly, and his gaze dropped to the table in front of him.

"You know what?" he said to Teuchi and Ayame.

"She keeps turning red, like she's got a fever or something. And she often faints too, it's been happening a fair bit. But…"

He stopped here, and continued in a serious tone.

"I think that because her clan doesn't like her, the medic-nin's aren't very nice to her either. I mean comeon! A fever's not that hard to heal, and she's had it for more than two weeks now!"

A pair of stunned looks greeted the end of his small 'conspiracy theory' announcement, accompanied with an unusually large sweat drop on their heads.

"Um… Naruto… I don't think that it's a fever that's causing her to go red and faint…"

Naruto only looked confused – of course it was a fever, what else could it be?

'_I don't really know anything else that make's someone's face go red or faint like Hinata does…'_

But before he could ponder on this much further, his order of the house specials arrived, and these thoughts were gone, chased off by the happiness that only Ichiraku Ramen could bring. The standard Naruto procedure at Ramen stands took place, bowls slowly stacking up to one side of him, each one looking just as empty as the last.

Hinata opened her eyes, flushed red, and quickly shut them again.

'_I fainted again… And he's taken me to eat with him…'_

"Oh hey Hinata, you're awake now! Have some of your ramen quick, before it gets cold. Don't worry, I've got it covered."

Mumbling a quick thank you, she nodded, knowing by now that protesting against him would only yield the same result, albeit it slightly delayed. The girl focused on lifting the chopsticks and putting the noodles into her mouth, hoping that the red colour of her face could be put down to the steam coming from the bowl in front of her.

'_Mustn't faint this time… Not after he's taken me here… Wait a minute… He must have carried me if I was unconscious…'_

"You gonna finish that?"

She looked up, seeing Naruto pointing to the other four bowls he'd set aside for her. Her eyes widened, and she vigorously shook her head.

"Um… No… You can have it… I don't think I'd be able to finish it…"  
His eyes lightened up along with his expression as she said this, and without further ado, he grabbed the bowls, sliding them across to his position on the bench.

She watched in awe as he downed the bowls in a matter of minutes, before jumping up, unloading around 20 coupons for free ramen bowls onto the counter, grabbing her hand, and running outside. Naturally, she reacted the normal way the moment his hand touched hers, red tinge deepening, conscious thought decreasing, and the urge to fiddle around with her index fingers increasing, but was still helpless to do anything but blush as he dragged her along in the direction of the training area he'd discovered.

"You got time to train with me today?" Seeing her nod, Naruto continued.

"Great! Can you teach me that move you used on Ino earlier today? It was awesome how you just knocked her out by poking her! I wanna be able to do that!"

Smiling slightly at his unusual enthusiasm, she explained to him that her style was heavily reliant on the Byakugan, as without it, a user wouldn't be able to see the internal organs or chakra points on a person's body.

"So you probably couldn't use it accurately enough… But the style you used by putting a lot of chakra into your arms and legs is similar, and its better suited to you I think. You might be the only person who can use it because of –"

"Because of the fox… right?"

The girl was shocked, and was afraid that she'd inadvertently hurt his feelings by trying to show that he was unique to other ninja, and tried to explain.

"No no! I just meant that –"

Again she was cut off, this time by a more reassuring tone.

"Its ok Hinata, the fox is sealed in me already, and there's not really much that can be done about that. You're right though, it is a good thing that I have this much chakra. Guess I may as well use it as long as its here right? Hehe…" he laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

'_Man… Didn't mean for the fox comment to come out that way… I hope I didn't upset her or anything… She's the only friend I've got!'_ he thought, recalling the expression on her face the moment he'd mentioned the nine tailed fox. It had been full of sadness, and a huge degree of worry.

'_Jeez… And I promised myself that I would protect her too… How can I do that properly if I keep going around hurting her feelings like that! Gotta watch what I say…'_

Brushing off the thought, he motioned for her to follow him, and the two of them walked past a line of trees, revealing a clear grassy area behind it, with multiple shattered tree trunks and the like littering the ground.

"Ok! Let's get started!"

With that, he ran towards a tree, jumped off it, and headed straight for her, with a huge grin evident in his expression. And once again, she couldn't help but smile back, as she raised her arms to defend.

"Why Itachi… Why…"

The dark haired boy sat cross legged in his home, in front of an Uchiha clan symbol which had been painted on the wall. On either side of the symbol, burned two black flames, ones that had been there for as long as Sasuke could remember. But his thoughts were not on the flames in front of him this time. No, now, the normally emotionless and 'top of the class' academy student was in a broken mess, sobbing almost uncontrollably to himself, and whispering occasionally.

"You were the perfect brother back then… Kind… Caring… What changed Itachi?"

Looking up at the ceiling with a tear streaked face, his eyes scanned the concrete surface above, as if trying to find an answer.

"Why…"

He still remembered those times, before the Uchiha massacre, when he could not have been a happier person, having the best brother of his life.

"_Hey Itachi! You're back! Hey hey! Lets play together! What game should we play?"_

"_Not now Sasuke! Your brother has homework to do! He's at the Academy now, remember?" his mother had said._

At those words, he had drooped, attempting to guilt his mother into allowing Itachi to play with him. But naturally, being an Uchiha parent, it didn't work. But then his brother had spoken up.

"_It's ok. I'll do it later. It's easy."_

And he'd picked up Sasuke, and walked outside into the forest, where they played hide and seek.

'_I still remember that day… He used clones, and I lost… But I still had a lot of fun…'_

"_Haha! Found you brother!"_

Smiling, his brother had replied "_Very good Sasuke."_

However, clasping his hands together, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"_But not good enough."_

"_Hey! You used the clone jutsu! No fair!"_

"That was the last time I can remember having real fun with him… And the last time he ever had any fun… After that time… Everything just got worse…"

"_Ok Sasuke, I think it's time to head back now. I've got to prepare for an important mission tomorrow."_

"_Your lying! And you promised to teach me a new shuriken technique!"_

Chuckling slightly, Itachi had motioned with his hand for Sasuke to come over to him. The younger Uchiha boy, thinking that he had relented, happily ran forward, only for his forehead to receive a sharp poke from the latter's index and middle finger.

"_I'm sorry Sasuke. Next time, alright?"_

"That day… you carried me home, after I injured my leg trying to prove myself to you to get you to teach me more techniques… You seemed so happy… You seemed to care for me… So then WHY!"

The black flames in front of him flared up slightly with his anger, before simmering back down. By the time they had returned to their previous state, the last Uchiha in the leaf village was lying on the ground, his face in contact with the cool stone, tears running down to form small puddles on the floor.

"Then why… did you have to do what you did? You had everything here! You had Father's support!"

"_Ah, Itachi, you've learnt how to use the clone technique already have you? Well done…"_

"… _Don't bother your brother Sasuke. He has some training to do. Training that will bring him above any ninja in the village!"_

"You had the Hokage's respect!"

"_Congratulations Itachi. You're now the Captain of the ANBU Black Ops of the Hidden Leaf."_

"You even had a mutual connection with me."

"_You and I are unique brothers Sasuke. We'll always be by each other in order to make the other one strong. And that's what I promise to you. Even if I just end up as an obstacle you have to overcome… I'll always be there for you. Even if you end up hating me."_

"I still don't understand… Something in you changed…"

"_Hey brother! Can you teach me a new shuriken technique today?"_

Itachi had been sitting at the top of the stairs, staring into space. He looked around at Sasuke, a rather blank look in his eyes.

"_I'm busy." _He had stated, before turning away from his brother.

"_Go ask Dad to teach you."_

"_But Itachi! Even a little kid like me knows that you're better at shuriken techniques!"_

He'd received another poke to his head, with the same accompanying lines of speech.

"_I'm sorry Sasuke. Next time, ok?"_

Unable to even collect his thoughts enough to speak properly, he simply lay there, crying. The black flames followed suit, diminishing to barely more than a black flicker against the grey wall.

'_Why…'_

"Owwww! Did you really have to 'poke' me that hard Hinata? I can't feel my arm now!"

Hinata giggled at his complaints, remembering that moment, which despite being dangerous at the time, was suddenly unbelievably funny now. Naruto had managed to push her off balance, and was coming forward with a chakra enhanced punch, one which she couldn't block properly in time. He'd had a look on horror as the realisation hit him that he was in the air from his jump, and couldn't stop. So she had taken the only option left and pushed a small spike of chakra into his arm, leaving only the normal physical impact, which was by no means small, but much less threatening.

"Well I had to do something to avoid being thrown back thirty metres. And besides, it was rather funny watching you after I did it."

Unable to help it, she giggled a few more times, before breaking out into laughter, spurred on even more by the sulky expression coming from Naruto. The boy of course, remembered what had happened quite well. He'd been moving forward, trying to cut off his chakra from his blow, when he realised it'd worked. Next thing he knew, an excruciating pain shot through his entire arm, and the thought occurred to him that it wasn't his own doing, it was from Hinata's taijutsu style. This internal embarrassment (he was definitely glad he hadn't told her that he'd managed to cut off his chakra from his arm), coupled with the sudden pain, resulted in a lack of focus, which then lead on to a rather comical landing. He rubbed his face to remove the dirt from it, and attempting to do the same with the seat of his pants, but the effort was in vain.

'_Jeez… I didn't even think that kind of landing was possible… Since when can you land on your butt and your face at the same time?'_

His pouting and mock-sulking expression stopped, and was immediately replaced by a grin, one with narrow eyes and rubbing hands accompanying it.

"Well Hinata, it might have looked funny, but you did seem a little bit worried back there… Very worried in fact… What was that all about?"

In truth, Naruto had no idea what he was implying, but his relatively slow mind perceived this as a good comeback, so he didn't feel any embarrassment. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for Hinata.

'_What? I thought he was unconscious then! I can't believe he knows how I reacted…'_

Her face was now a bright crimson, one would have been able to feel the heat emanating from it by simply waving their hand past it.

When Hinata had fended off his attack, and seen him lying in that awkward, but motionless position, panic had instantly gripped her, and she'd rushed over to him, shouting desperately for him to wake up, even going as far as hugging him. Of course, he'd chosen that moment to open his eyes, not only causing her to faint at the idea of consciously hugging him, but simultaneously bring her facial colour towards the red side of visible light.

The girl's sudden silence told Naruto that he'd somehow managed to give a good comeback.

'_Hehehe… I don't know why it embarrasses her so much, seeing as we're friends and everything… But whatever works I guess!'_

"Now comeon! I'm starving!"

Grabbing her hand again, he began dragging her over to the Ramen stand, not really noticing that she wasn't exactly running with him, but was instead leaving a rather noticeable trail in the dirt.

'_But I guess… Because it's with Naruto… I don't really mind…'_

'_I'm sorry Naruto that I wasn't able to do this earlier, but being Hokage does keep one exceptionally busy, especially with that accursed paperwork. But this time, I'll settle things once and for all.'_

Hiruzen Sarutobi walked into the path intersection where Naruto had mentioned getting 'beaten up' from the other villagers. Surely enough, there was a group of them, waiting, presumably for him to come back from dinner or training, too tired to react to their attack. Stepping forward into the light, he spoke, surprising many of them.

"Obviously a lot of you did not understand, or were not there, when I previously gave my message at a few of the shops."

The silence he received was expected, and a few even tried to run, only to find their feet frozen, their minds bound by a paralysis genjutsu.

"Now I will repeat myself very clearly, for the last time. None of you are to lay a finger on that boy, without a valid reason, and that valid reason is by my judgement, not yours. If I find any of you discriminating against him for the nine-tailed fox… or planning one of your little attacks like this one, then there will be two options for you. You will either be banished, or personally executed by me. UNDERSTOOD?"

The terrified silence of the small crowd in front of him was enough an answer.

"I also notice, that there are a few of you wearing leaf ninja head bands. You especially, disgust me. And as Hokage, I find myself wondering if you are worthy of representing the Hidden Leaf Village's military power."

He walked off, leaving the stunned group of villagers and ninja behind.

'_Whilst this may not be the appropriate time to be thinking like this… That was fun… Being Hokage definitely has its perks… Hehehe…'_

"Time to pull yourself together. Tomorrow's the day of the exams. If it's anything like it's previously been, then my lack of preparation so far won't be an issue," muttered the Uchiha to himself, picking himself off the ground which was only now starting to dry off.

"But if Iruka decides on another sparring session like the one he did in the last lesson, and I have to face off against Naruto… I hate to admit it but I may not make genin if that happens…"

Sasuke turned, and headed to the training room.

"Its time that I got stronger… Strong enough to be at the top, and stay there."

With one kick, he knocked one of the dummies of its two supports, following up with an axe kick to its abdominal equivalent, before twisting around and striking the one which had attempted to sneak up behind him.

"Fire Style – Dragon Flame Jutsu!"

The training dummies fell back, the chakra infused in them preventing any from catching alight, but still knocked away. However, the Uchiha fell with them.

'_That new fire jutsu… It still drains me… But I can't stop… Not yet…'_

He forced himself to his feet, breathing heavily, but still standing.

'_If I can push myself past this limit… If I can just push a bit further…'_

Giving out a loud shout, he lunged towards the group of wooden figures, drawing his fist back as he did so.

"What! Tomorrow's our graduation exam? Iruka-sensei never said that!"

"Um… Sorry Naruto… But I'm afraid he did… I think you bolted out of class before he managed to say it…"

"Oh yea… Hehe… I just hope it's not a written exam… I hate written exams…"

"Don't worry, I think it's just a performance of one of the jutsu that we've learnt in class."

"Ahhh Awesome! I've got both of them down pretty well! Anyway, thanks for training with me today! I'll see you tomorrow! Good luck for that test!"

He ran off, waving behind him, heading towards the lower class district of the Leaf Village, leaving Hinata behind who was still trying to say goodbye.

'_He's always in such a hurry, both to and from his training… I guess that's one of his better qualities… He works hard and doesn't give up…'_

Smiling, she turned as well, walking along the rocky path to her home.

"**How would you be interested in getting a little stronger, slightly more quickly kid?"**

"What do you mean? And how do I know this isn't a trick you sneaky old fox?"

Again came the laugh, a deep sound which reverberated around the sewer image of the prison.

"**Don't forget, that if you die, I do as well… So I can't really do anything to you… Any injuries my chakra will instantly heal… So what's the harm?"**

Seeing the boy's hesitation, the fox continued.

"**Look. All that I intend to do, is release my chakra to mix with your network at a faster rate than it's currently going. It'll give you a lot more power, and the only reason I haven't done it yet is because of this accursed seal… Without your conscious permission, I can't make any alteration to the rate at which my chakra mingles with yours…"**

Naruto paused, giving it a little thought.

"Alright then. But I'm warning you, try anything funny, and you'll regret it!"

"**Hahahaha…"**

The slow laugh again.

"**Unlikely that you would be able to do anything to me if I decided to mess things up a little… But nevertheless, I will not 'try anything funny' as you have put it…"**

"I guess… Alright then, go right ahead fox."

As he said this, red chakra immediately began flowing out, engulfing the image of his body in the subconscious part of his mind that held the nine-tailed fox's prison. But he never noticed this – his mind was lost in dreams, with a few random thoughts regarding the day's events still floating around, flashing back a few times to his training.

'_Heh… Had fun with Hinata today… Should do that again some time…'_ he thought drowsily, not really paying attention to what his mind was trying to say.

'_Exam tomorrow… Me ready… More chakra… Sleep now…'_

Sleep quickly claimed him amongst his flood of relatively incoherent thoughts.

Hinata lay in her bed, rethinking what'd happened during the day.

'_I actually hugged Naruto today… Sure it was when I thought he was unconscious, but even so…'_

Even lying down, and just thinking about what'd occurred, was enough to cause the girl to blush.

'_And if he wasn't really unconscious when I was doing it, then that means he let me hug him!'_

The blushing intensity increased.

'_No… I can't focus on that now… I have to concentrate on the graduation exam tomorrow… I hope I'm ready for it… And that Naruto and I will be on the same team afterwards… We'll be able to spend more time together…'_

Rolling over onto her side, she smiled, before going to sleep.

*****  
Sakura looked up at the sky, a rather sad and disappointed look on her face.

"I don't get it…" she said to herself.

"I've studied as much as possible, achieved the top academic marks in the academy tests and homework, to be good enough for Sasuke… But that lazy-ass Shikamaru was able to beat me so easily… Am I really that weak compared to everyone else?"

She thought back to the time when Naruto had entered the academy classroom for the first time, and how she'd mocked him, claiming that Sasuke was the best by far, and that a person like him could never be as good. She'd even given her own silent judgement of Hinata beside him, instantly dismissing her as weak, due to her lack of attention to the boy who was clearly top of the class.

"But I've been working so hard just to keep up with Ino this whole time… And for Hinata to beat her in the class fight with just a few strikes… Maybe I have fallen back…"

She sighed, and walked back inside, stepping in front of the mirror, taking a long look at her reflection.

'_Is this what I've become? Some girl who's useless for everything else except stalking the popular guy? I don't know if I'm ready for tomorrow's exam…'_

Sleep didn't come easily for the girl, her mind was full of conflicting emotions and equally conflicting thoughts.

******  
Ino visibly drooped, standing at the front desk of her family's flower shop.

"Ugh… Why'd they stick me here for the late night shift… It's not like anyone's going to turn up… Besides, I need to rest for the exam tomorrow…"

'_The exam…'_

The blonde girl remembered back to the class earlier that day, when the Hyuuga girl had easily paralysed her, all with a few finger jabs.

'_I don't get it! She was supposed to be an easy matchup… But I didn't even manage to land a hit on her!'_

"But I have to pass that exam tomorrow! If I don't and Sakura does…"

'_But even Sakura, the one that I've been competing with for a long time… She got beaten so easily as well… What if we're both too far behind the rest of the class to compete?'_

"Even Kiba who lost… He fought better than either of us… He was up against Sasuke, but the fight took more than half an hour to finish… Sasuke actually struggled against him…"

'_At this rate, he'll never pay attention to me… If I'm this pathetic…'_

"Am I really ready for it?"

Too tired to continue down this miserable line of thought, Ino slumped down onto the counter, and closed her eyes.

**My apologies for not updating for ages, just been really busy lately :|. Hope you like this chapter, review :D**


	15. The Academy Graduation Exam

"Alright class, if everybody would just sit down, we'll get out graduation exams under way. To be clear on today, there are no written components for the exam."

Iruka saw a few faces, Sakura Haruno's included, droop as he said this.

"Today's exam is designed to test your ability to adapt to unusual situations, think your way appropriately through them, as well as reviewing your progress throughout this term. Mizuki will be supervising you through the first section."

A light grey haired Chuunin stepped forward from the desk which had been set up at the front of the room.

"Listen up! You are all currently still potential graduates. Your success in today's exam is what could change that, but it will not be easy. We'll be starting with a little surprise…"

Motioning for the students to follow him, he led them out into the training grounds, where a series of targets had been set up. Confused, one of the students raised their hand.

"Mizuki-sensei… We haven't been instructed in target practice with kunai or shuriken yet… How are we supposed to pass this section?"

The examiner smiled at this, as if expecting it.

"That's the surprise for this year's exam, the section that tests your ability to adapt, to a situation which you aren't expecting. All that is required to pass the test, is for you to get the kunai from here…" He walked over to a line marked on the ground.

"… To the target. Preferably its centre, but as none of you have done this before in class, we'll be lenient and pass anyone who is able to hit it."

The class lined up, with Shikamaru being called up first.

"Ugh… What a drag… Now everybody's going to try and copy me…"

Making a hand sign, he knelt down, muttered something that no-one could hear, and his shadow, which had been nothing more than a small blob at his feet, suddenly extended forwards, attaching itself to the shadow of the kunai knife on the ground. Grumbling about effort and unnecessary tests the whole way, the lazy boy stepped backwards, the kunai moving in the opposite direction. When it touched the foot of the target, he made a small jump, barely high enough for the kunai to nick the edge of the target.

"Ok I've passed… If there's nothing else, I'll just have a nap before the next section…"

He lay down, and within a few seconds, was snoring.

"This isn't going to work if you just keep going one at a time! We have 3 targets set up, which means three of you go each time. Come on, lets get on with it! Ino Yamanaka, Sakura Haruno, and Choji Akimichi, please step forward.

'_Choji? Hope he does better here than he did in his fight with me…' _thought Naruto.

But the rather large academy student seemed quite confident as he stepped up, and picked up one of the kunai from the pile.

'_Heh… I was training all night with Dad on this technique… There's no way I can get this wrong now!'_

"Partial Expansion Jutsu! One arm!" he yelled, and his arm grew to about 3 times its normal size. He easily threw the kunai, not exactly on target, but with plenty of length, and it thudded into the bottom right side of the marked circle. Smiling in Shikamaru's general direction, he sat back down, leaving the two other girls who had been called up a little worried.

'_How'd Choji do that? He was beaten so easily by Naruto the other day… But that's way beyond what I can do…'_ Sakura thought, casting a worrying glance to her rival, Ino.

Gulping, both stepped up to the throwing line, and clumsily threw the knives in the general direction of the targets. One of the two managed to clip the edge of one, whilst the other fell short. As Ino breathed a sigh of relief, Sakura dropped her head, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to leak from her eyes.

'_All my studying… It was useless… I can't do anything right when it comes to the real thing…'_

"Naruto Uzumaki, Hinata Hyuga, and Shino Aburame! Please step forward."

Each of them had differing thoughts regarding the test which now stood before them. Shino, had none, completely confident in his abilities, remaining as silent as ever behind his high collar and dark glasses. Hinata, having dealt with aiming objects using her chakra, was also confident that she could at least hit the target. But naruto…

'_Ahh man! How am I supposed to do this! I don't exactly feel comfortable taking a random chance like Sakura and Ino just did… But what else can I do? All the other guys here have their own clan specialties or whatever to fall back on, while I don't have a thing! Comeon Naruto… Think… What can you do here…'_

Shino's kunai floated over to the target, settling gradually on top of it, before a small group of insects crawled out from under it, and flew back to him.

'_Ahh man… Shino's already done with his! I'm running out of time here…'_

Hinata stepped up, after smiling comfortingly to Naruto, and threw the kunai knife up, before giving it a sharp strike. It went straight into the middle, even pushing the target back a few centimeters as it struck.

'_Way to go Hinata! Wait a minute… That means it's my turn… Argh! I've gotta think of something…'_

Mizuki was sitting on the side, and he noticed Naruto's discomfort, evident from the almost comical amounts of sweat rolling down the boy's face.

'_That's right demon brat… You've got nothing to do now that you can't pull any of your stupid tricks… There's no way you'll ever be allowed to become a ninja… Naturally, being the primitive monster that you are, you'd never be able to think creatively enough to –'_

His gloating thinking was cut off abruptly when the blonde boy in front of him disappeared, in his place, the wooden target.

'_What? A substitution? Where did he learn to do that?'_

Unable to hold in a grin at his sudden spark of 'genius' as he liked to think of it, Naruto walked back to the starting line, having reappeared in place of the wooden target.

"So Mizuki-sensei, I've just gotta get this kunai from this line to the target right?"

Still smiling with an expression which seemed like it was about to slide off the surface of his skin, he stood at the line, and jabbed the kunai into the centre of the target, which after the substitution, was now only a few centimeters away from the line.

"Hehe… Guess I pass the first part huh?"

Grudgingly, Mizuki nodded, although he was careful not to show this outwardly, and putting on a fake smile, he asked the last few remaining academy students to step forward. Just as expected, Sasuke was the only student to be able to throw it without using any other ability, having already been trained as a younger child in throwing weapons. The others, already nervous from this show of skill, all fumbled, Kiba included, and missed, with the latter growling in a rather animalistic way to vent out his frustration. Rather nervous at what this meant for their possibilities of passing, they walked over to the rest of the students, and sat, waiting for their sensei to speak.

"Well… Some of you passed this section and some of you didn't. But for those of you who did not manage so well here, this section is not significant enough for you to fail. So provided that you are able to do exceptionally well in the next two parts, you will still be allowed to pass."

He smirked slightly at the collective sigh of relief from those who had not managed to hit the target successfully, before continuing.

"Now I'll pass you on to Might Guy, who has kindly taken his day off his Jounin duties as a leaf shinobi to manage this part of the exam. They're all yours," said Mizuki, turning to a man wearing what appeared to be an extremely tight green leotard, only with leggings added, and who'd also apparently appeared out of thin air whilst Mizuki was talking. At the Chuunin's cue, he began talking.

"Fear not, for I can sense the mighty powers of youth burning fiercely in each and every one of you! Haha!" He quickly took this opportunity to pose with a thumbs up, and give a few sparkles of his teeth to encourage them, not noticing that it had the opposite effect.

Mizuki had a similar reaction to the students, feeling repulsed by the man's strange habits.

'_How can he be a Jounin… He's ridiculous! But I must admit that his skill level is exceptional… Which only works in my favour, as his test is more likely to be difficult, and taijutsu based if I'm not mistaken…'_

Casting a glance at Naruto, who was simply sitting there with a giant sweat drop on the back of his head, he narrowed his eyes, facial expression twisting into one of hate.

'_I don't know what the Third Hokage sees in you, nine tails brat… But if I'm not mistaken, you've only attended two taijutsu classes… There's no way you'll be able to pass this test, despite cheating your way out of the first…'_

He turned away, walking back towards his office.

'_No matter what I have to do, I'll make sure you don't become a genin… Then you'll have no choice but to go by my plans…'_

********  
"Alright students! Let's get to work! You represent the possible future of the leaf, and the next generation to harness the mighty Power of Youth! This test will see how well you can use that power!"

The academy students simply sat there with the same confused look they'd mutually worn when this crazy man had first introduced himself. Even Sakura was too creeped out by the new character to continue feeling depressed.

"All you have to do is knock a wooden pole down in three strikes! GO!"

Unperturbed by their lack of reaction to his endless enthusiasm, Guy simply stood in his pose as the children picked themselves up off the ground and each selected a pole.

'_Hehe… I can sense their fiery youthfulness already! Especially in that one!'_

He looked at Shikamaru, who was looking at the pole with a stare of extreme boredom.

'_Yes… That one will go far with his passion…'_

"Alright students…" he paused for dramatic effect, and then shouted out whilst doing a little midair twirl.

"BEGIN!"

Kiba grinned, determined not to fail this section, and signalled to his dog, Akamaru, to come over. It climbed onto his back, at which point he knelt down onto all fours, muttering "Beast Mimicry, All fours jutsu" under his breath. His teeth lengthened into fangs, and his nails grew longer, becoming a human equivalent to claws. Lunging forward, the two of them raked at the base of the pole, and within two strikes, the top half toppled over. Landing back onto all fours, he got up, smiling at Akamaru, before smugly walking off to the waiting area.

The rest of the students all managed, although some with less spectacular methods. Sakura and Ino resorted to normal strikes and just managed to get their wooden poles to fall, whilst others such as Sasuke, Hinata, and Naruto, sent their's flying. Sure, Sasuke had used conventional taijutsu as well, but being much more adept at it than the fan girls, he was able to knock the pole over with one powerful kick. Might guy simply watched them, smiling as he saw that every single one had been knocked over. Of course, being a Jounin, he had been able to make sure that none of the students had used more than three strikes to do so.

"WELL! That just about concludes the second section, and I'm glad to say, YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH ALLOWED YOU TO PASS!"

Everybody jumped at the sudden loud sound of his voice, and winced as he continued.

"And now! Into your normal class room where Iruka will be testing your Ninjutsu!"

He struck his pose again, grinning in what he thought to be an encouraging manner. The students simply rushed past him, every one of them desperate to get away from this strange man. But the peculiar Green Beast of the Hidden Leaf remained clueless to their true intention, and a smile found its way to his face as he observed the young soon to be ninjas in front of him.

'_Just look at them go. Their eagerness must be a testament to all that youthful energy inside…'_

Posing one last time to anyone who might be watching, he jumped, leaping through the trees towards the Hokage building to receive his next mission.

********  
"Get ready for the final section of your academy graduation test. This is by far the most important part, and will simply be a test of whether you've managed to learn what we have tried to teach you. A simple demonstration of the clone jutsu, with at least two clones, which are at least of comparable standard, is required to pass. However, please bear in mind that this part is worth more than half your overall grade, so if you fail this, then you will fail the entire exam and be held back another year."

Collective gulps from most of the students could be heard at this point, and Iruka was quick to try and restore their confidence.

"But don't worry, many of you have already demonstrated extensive and successful use of the clone jutsu, I'm sure you'll be able to pass. And to ensure a fair and accurate show of what you are actually capable of, each person will be allowed three attempts, the most successful of which will be judged. Are there any questions?"

Seeing no raised hands, he turned his attention to the list in front of him.

"Then would Shino Aburame please follow me."

The quiet boy with the unusually high collar and dark tinted glasses walked forward from his seating position, following the Chuunin into a separate room. A few minutes passed, before he walked out again, just as emotionless, sitting back down without a word.

"Sakura Haruno."

Naruto grew bored with waiting for all the others to finish their turn, so he turned to Hinata, hoping for a short conversation to entertain himself.

"Hehe, I think we've both aced this one, don't you think Hinata? I mean come on, we managed pretty well in both the first sections, and we already know that we're both awesome at doing the clone jutsu! We've got this for sure!"

Hinata only managed to get in a shy nod and a smile in reply, before her name was called out, and she walked down to where her sensei was waiting.

Without waiting for Iruka's instruction, she made the three handsigns and spoke softly "Clone Jutsu."

Four perfect copies of her appeared around her, each in exactly the same posture as the original. Hinata's second attempt went very much the same, another four appearing, before vanishing with the usual small puff of smoke. However, on her last attempt, she was able to push even further and bring out six clones, something that gained her Iruka's praise.

"Well done Hinata! Your clones are the best so far, right up there with Sakura's! And all of them are of excellent quality! I'm also given to understand that you managed exceptionally well in the previous sections as well, so I'm extremely happy to present you with one of the Leaf village's headbands."

He picked one up from the desk and handed the headband to her.

"Congratulations Hinata, you're now officially a kunoichi of the leaf. Of course, you won't be going into genin status straight away, as classes will continue, but this is your first step, in becoming one of the village's best ninja. You may go."

Unable to contain the huge smile from spreading across her face, she practically ran back into the classroom, heading straight towards Naruto.

"I did it Naruto! I passed!"

"Hehe! Of course you did! Was it even possible for you not to? Well I guess you're a ninja now!"

She blushed at his praises, and took a seat next to him, fastening the headband around her neck.

"Well it's your turn now Naruto… Good luck!" she said to him, smiling as he walked down the stairs to the room where Iruka was waiting.

The Hyuga girl breathed out a sigh of relief as she leaned back on her seat, glad that she had managed to work her way towards the genin ninja rank.

'_And I'm sure that you'll be joining me soon Naruto…'_

When he walked out of the room, Hinata sat up, and smiled, only for the happy expression to slowly slide off her face, after seeing the look on his. It was a heavy frown, with sadness, shock, and some anger mixed in. And he was not wearing, or holding, a leaf headband.

'_What could have happened? We all saw him use the clone jutsu in class against Choji, he should have passed with no problem at all!'_

When Naruto reached the spot where Hinata was sitting, she asked him, just in case it was some joke he was trying to pull, and that he'd hidden the headband somewhere, or that Iruka had suddenly run out.

"Did you pass Naruto?"

He looked towards her, not speaking for a few seconds, before allowing a few tears to leak from his eyes.

"No."

He ran out of the classroom, jumping through the window, onto the rooftops, and away from that dreaded exam room which had dashed his hopes of becoming Hokage.

******  
_'I don't get it… I'd practiced so hard! I used the clone jutsu just fine when I was sparring against Choji in class…'_

The blonde boy sat alone on his little swing, which hung in front of the academy gates. He watched as the various parents congratulated their children for passing, hearing the same phrases over and over.

"… So proud of you…" "… I knew you could…" "… Look Dad, I passed…"

His head shot up, as he heard someone muttering about him. Searching through the group of people before him, it didn't take long to find who the source of the sound was, and he fixed his gaze on them.

"There. Look at him. I hear he's the only one who failed the exam."

"Well it's just as well… Imagine what could happen if he became a ninja! After all, isn't he the –"

"Shhh… We're not supposed to talk about that…"

'_I'm back where I was before I started at the academy… I'm by myself, just sitting on this swing, watching everyone else go home with their families…'_

Small droplets fell to the ground, unnoticed by all, except one, who was watching cautiously from a distance, a concerned look on her face. But in his grief, the blonde didn't notice, and afraid that he might burst into tears in front of the people who despised him, jumped up onto the nearest rooftop, heading towards the Hokage monument, a place which had always offered him some degree of comfort when the swing was insufficient.

As he ran and leaped, he thought back to the final stage of the graduate exam…

"Alright Naruto, all we need for you to pass and receive a leaf shinobi headband, is to see you demonstrate the clone jutsu. The minimum is two clones, but feel free to make more if you want. Now we've already seen you do this in class, so this is more of a formality, but it really can't be helped." said Iruka.

Nodding and grinning, Naruto went through the hand seals and shouted out "Clone Jutsu!" causing a rather large cloud of smoke to appear. When it cleared, Naruto was standing in the middle of it, whilst his sensei looked on with shock. Surrounding the boy were five clones, but they all had serious errors, some were unusually pale, the others were missing limbs or twisted into awkward positions.

"Uh…" the boy managed to say, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

"Maybe five's a bit much… I'll try two…"

"Clone Jutsu!"

The same occurred, with similar results, both clones on either side lacking colour, as well as staggering around as if they were made of paper.

"Um… Maybe just one then?"

The end result was no better, this clone being the worst of all the ones he'd created. Surprised, and shocked, by his failure, Naruto looked up at his sensei, confused. What he saw there, made him feel even worse – the look of disappointment which clearly lay in Iruka's eyes.

"Naruto… I thought you would have taken this seriously, being as eager as you always were to engage in practical exercises… But it's evident that you did not practice enough for this exam after that sparring class… I'm sorry but even the worst of the class were able to produce at least two perfect clones… I can't pass you."

"But –"

"No Naruto, you can't have any exceptions… You'll have to stay back another year."

At that point, he had walked out of the room, and after his brief exchange with Hinata, run from the academy. Settling down on the Fourth Hokage's head, he went through the hand signs again, just to be sure.

"Clone Jutsu!"

The tottering image staggered wildly around before falling over the edge, vanishing in a puff of smoke as it did so.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked out loud to himself, looking at his two hands.

"It's like all that hard work I put in to getting better control is gone…"

Selecting one of the few trees that could grow on top of the monument, he attempted to walk up, only to have it splinter, leaving a stump, the rest of the trunk lying a few metres away.

'_Wait…'_

His eyes widened, and he immediately began searching within his mind, for that sewer-like location which he'd seen so many times in his dreams, all of which had involved the nine tailed fox.

"OI FOX! YOU'RE THE REASON I FAILED MY TEST! YOU MADE ME LOSE ALL MY CHAKRA CONTROL!"

When he received no reply, he thought it was asleep, and was about to shout again, when the fox finally spoke.

"**And just what did you expect would happen from getting more power? I'll admit, I wasn't aware that it would have disrupted your control that greatly, but then again, it is better for you in the long run… If this continues, then by next year, when you are able to graduate, your control will be on par with that of a Jounin…"**

"I can't wait till next year! My only friend's passed this year, and I have to pass with her! If I don't…" he paused and the tone of his voice dropped to a darker one.

"I'll be alone again…"

"**Well then… There's not much you can do… Perhaps the long term gains are sufficient compensation for your short term loss?"**

Naruto shook his head, and 'woke up,' his mind coming back to reality. After gathering his bearings, he realized somebody was saying his name.

"Naruto. Are you alright?"

It was Mizuki.

"Mizuki-sensei, what are you doing here?"

"Listen, I know you're upset about the exam, and I know you're capable of doing that jutsu. Today must have just been an unlucky day… Iruka really wanted you to pass… He wants you to be strong, which is why he's so tough on you…"

Hearing this, Naruto's mood lifted.

"Really?"

"Yes, indeed, which is why he was disappointed when you didn't manage to succeed in the final section. And that's why I'm offering you the opportunity to have another chance at becoming a genin!"

The boy couldn't believe it, and a smile wormed its way onto his tear-streaked face at the prospect of still being able to pass, and taking another step to earning the village's respect.

"I'll do whatever it takes! Just tell me what I've gotta do!"

Smirking, the Chuunin teacher leaned down and whispered into the boy's ear.

"It involves a little something known as the scroll of sealing…"

**Again apologies for the slow update. Unfortunately, since I have HSC chemistry this year, and the rest of my HSC next year, new chapters will probably be limited to once a month or longer :(**

**However, by no means will I give up on this fic. I intend to take this all the way to the end of the Naruto series (before shippuden begins).**

**Review please :)**


	16. Graduate!

'_I'm gonna become a genin no matter what! This might not be easy, but Mizuki-sensei said that this opportunity was only offered to the most promising academy students…'_

Naruto was on his way to the Hokage's building, running across the village rooftops at a speed much faster than what others his age could manage.

'_This is the only option I've got left.'_

******  
"The Scroll of sealing?"

"Yes Naruto, that's its name. It's the large looking one in the right corner of the Hokage's office, you can't possibly miss it. Its practically half your height! In order to pass and graduate, you have to learn one jutsu from the scroll before the other instructors and I find you. Just head into the forest as quickly as possible and get started, and we'll start searching for you after a certain time."

"Ok! No problem!"

******  
_'Learning one of those jutsu can't be too easy, after all, the scroll of sealing is forbidden, meaning that the jutsu instructions written inside it are really difficult… But I'll do it somehow! And in the long run, it'll only make me stronger.'_

He entered the Hokage's room, taking a quick glance around. Seeing nobody else in there, just as Mizuki had told him, he quickly grabbed the large scroll which matched the Chuunin's description, and jumped out the window, dashing as fast as he could into the forest, unconsciously fuelling his legs with chakra, making his legs move quicker than what seemed physically possible.

'_No matter what it takes…'_

His mind drifted as he ran, first conjuring up an image of Sasuke.

'_He's been friendlier lately… Not as much of an arrogant stuck up jerk… But there's absolutely no way I'm letting him climb ahead!'_

Naruto entered the forest, rushing through the trees until he reached a clear gathering. As he began opening the scroll, untying the string that held it closed, he thought about Hinata.

'_There's also no way I'm letting her go on alone. We're friends, and we do everything together, including graduating to a genin!'_

His eyes settled on the first technique.

"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu…" he murmured to himself as he read the description, and instructions.

'_Weird looking hand sign, doesn't seem like any of the one's we've covered in class… And apparently uses up a whole load of chakra… But they can move independently and attack without my instruction, and cause actual damage…'_

Standing up with a determined look set into his facial features, he began forming the hand sign for the jutsu, but didn't utter any words.

'_I've gotta get this hand sign right first, before I do anything…'_

Unknown to Naruto, he had not been alone in the Hokage's office. Had the young boy been more experienced, he would have noticed a slight shimmering of the air from the chair behind the desk. Now, it moved, the air appearing to ripple before the Third Hokage appeared. He shook his head, sighing, before looking out the window to where Naruto had gone.

'_Naruto… What's gotten into you? Why would you just steal something as valuable as the scroll of sealing from the village? It's not like you…'_

Reluctantly, he gave the signal for Konoha's ANBU Black Ops Squads to assemble.

'_Regardless of your intentions… You may have brought a crisis onto our hands…'_

*******  
Hinata watched with her Byakugan as many large chakra's gathered in front of the Hokage building. The sheer number of them was unmistakable, the ANBU forces were gathering, for whatever reason.

'_What could possibly be such a concern that the Hokage is calling for the entire ANBU division?'_

She watched with worry as they all scattered, heading towards the forests.

*******  
Sasuke couldn't believe it. After all that Naruto had shown him, after everything he'd been confirmed to be capable of, he had failed the exam!

'_How is it even possible that he, out of everyone in the class, was the one to fail? And the only one at that! He was fine in the first two sections… I was watching him specifically… But why would he fail the clone jutsu test – he demonstrated perfectly against the Akimichi boy…'_

His eyes shot open and he stiffened as a sudden realization hit him.

'_If he didn't pass, then only the Hyuuga girl is a challenge… I can't possibly progress fast enough with just one opponent!'_

Growling in frustration, he punched at the ground, not even caring about the jarring sensation that formed in his fists.

"Naruto! What do you think you're doing!" he shouted out.

"I honestly don't care what happens with you, but you will not hold back my progress!"

Breathing heavily from his sudden outburst, he got up, and began storming over to the Hokage building, intent on negotiating Naruto's genin status.

*******  
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

He felt the chakra leave his body, swirling around in the air and taking shape. But nothing appeared, everything was exactly as it had been before he had attempted the jutsu for the fifth time, and he was now down to about half his chakra.

'_This isn't like the clone jutsu… But now, even if I try to restrict the chakra, the clone's won't even appear! Not even a floppy looking one! Is my chakra control really that messed up?'_

Sighing, he chose the nearest tree, and focused his chakra to his feet, ready to relearn the tree walking exercise again.

'_I know this will detract from my time to learn the jutsu, and my chances of passing, but I'm not getting anywhere as it is…'_

A loud crack resounded throughout the forest, as the tree snapped, and he hurriedly jumped off it. He repeated the process with another, with similar results, almost being impaled by a particularly large fragment of wood.

'_I'm not giving up!'_

His eyes glowed a brighter blue colour momentarily, before returning to their original shade, as he leapt towards the next nearest tree. And grinned as it didn't break.

*******  
"Iruka! Wake up! You have to wake up!"

The Chuunin had been laying in bed, wondering about Naruto's failure, when the voice of his fellow instructor, Mizuki, interrupted him. He opened the door, to see a frantic looking silver hair Chuunin, who instantly began babbling.

"Naruto has stolen the forbidden scroll of sealing! The Hokage's called in an assembly of all available Chuunin and above, we have to go!"

Shock ran through the young man's system, as he processed what he'd just been told.

'_No… Naruto wouldn't have stolen it… He can't have been that upset from the exams…'_

Numbly, he put on his flak jacket and followed Mizuki towards the assembly location.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Naruto had decided to make the jutsu a little more simple, opting to create a few perfect shadow clones, before trying the multiple variation of it. When the puff of smoke yielded nothing, he simply tried again.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Again, nothing happened. Not one to be deterred so easily, he reformed the cross hand sign.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

This time, a flicker of orange and blonde hair appeared, before vanishing just as quickly.

'_What's up with that? I'm restraining chakra as much as I can, down to the last bit that I can control it! But now it looks like it's not enough…'_

Something clicked in his mind.

'_Not enough huh…'_

He formed the hand sign, but this time, allowed the mental barrier against his chakra to vanish, allowed it to flow out freely.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Smoke once again enveloped him, only this time, five identical copies stood when the smoke disappeared. For a few minutes, all the clones stared at each other, not speaking. Then one of them broke the silence.

"You!" it said, pointing to the original.

"Stop staring! It's rude!"

This started off a chain reaction amongst the remaining clones.

"Hey, as if you weren't staring too!"

"I wasn't talking to you was I now?"

"He made me, so talking to him is talking to me!"

'_Ugh…'_

Quickly, the original Naruto read the scroll again, and following its instructions, dismissed all of them, creating yet another heavy cloud of smoke.

'_I'm hoping that their behaviour was only because of my surprise at their presence, which would mean their surprise as well… Although I can see what the scroll meant by independence… But I can't stop here, I've still gotta pull off the multiple variation!'_

Wiping away the sweat that beaded along his forehead, and trying to ignore the dark patch forming on his upper back, he moved his fingers into the hand sign, which by now, was almost instinctive.

"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

*******  
"All of you, please listen. It would appear that Naruto has taken the scroll of sealing from my office, and was last sighted heading towards the forests. ANBU squads, you are to track him down, look for any trails he left behind. Remaining Jonin and Chuunin, especially those of you who know Naruto personally, are to look for areas where you think he may be."

As a few of them turned to leave, he quickly amended his statements.

"But you are to return with both Naruto, and the scroll. And the boy is to be alive, without any harm caused by the Ninja of the Leaf village. If I do find that any of you have caused him harm…"

He let his statement hang in the air, allowing the ninja before him to absorb what he said, before turning away and walking back to his office.

'_Just what's going on, Naruto?'_

Before he made it to the door however, he heard footsteps behind him. He whipped his head around quickly, eyes settling on a familiar boy whom he'd been watching, along with the blonde.

"Ahh, Sasuke… What brings you to my office? Surely you are not unhappy with your result in the graduation exams?"

The tone of the boy's reply surprised him, it was almost demanding.

"Why didn't Naruto pass? Do not try and pretend that you haven't seen what I've seen – of what he is able to do. Everything in that exam, that was required to pass, I've seen him do before."

"Sasuke, you must listen. Regardless of what Naruto was seen to be capable of, in the exam, under pressure, he was unable to replicate it. I know why you are here, to try and convince me to pass him anyway. But I'm sorry to inform you, that it cannot happen. Naruto has to learn how to act under pressure. As a ninja, he will be faced with many life threatening situations, and he has to be able to perform the same jutsu perfectly, regardless."

The Uchiha shook his head.

"That's not it! He used the clone jutsu against a classmate in a sparring session! He's fine with pressure!"

'_Oh? That's strange… The boy was never the type to stop practicing once he'd mastered a jutsu… Perhaps I should have been watching him during the exams…' _Thought Hiruzen.

The Third Hokage paused for a moment to think this through, before replying.

"I will… consider what you have said. But for the time being, everything will remain as it is, and I must ask you to take your leave now."

Nodding, Sasuke left, but not before casting a curious eye at the small congregation of various Jonin and Chuunin who had not left to search yet.

'_What are they all doing here?'_

*******  
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

And this time, it worked. Pouring as much chakra as he could into the jutsu, Naruto watched with happiness as multiple copies of him appeared around the clearing, at least a hundred shadow clones stood, crouched, or knelt in the surrounding area.

"Hah! I did it! I passed the test! And now I'm gonna be a Genin!"

A rustling in the bushes startled him, and he dismissed all his clones, not wanting the surprise to be ruined for anyone who might be there.

"Is that you Mizuki-sensei?"

"No it's not."

Iruka stepped out, a frown on his face, rather than the smile the boy had expected.

"Just what are you doing Naruto? You know the scroll of sealing is forbidden for a reason, the jutsu in that scroll could kill you! The Third Hokage saw you leave with it, and called in all the ANBU squads, as well as every Jonin and Chuunin! How could you be so foolish as to steal something that valuable?"

The boy of course, was shocked.

"But… I didn't steal this…"

He looked down at the scroll he was holding.

"Mizuki-sensei told me that if I could take it and learn one of the jutsu from it before a leaf ninja found me, then I could become a Genin…"

'_What? Mizuki told him to do this?'_

Just as the thought ran through Iruka's mind, the laughter of the instructor in question rang out across the clearing.

"Hah… That's right Iruka, I did tell him to do so. Now boy…" Mizuki said, eyes hardening as he set his sights on Naruto.

"Give me the scroll, and neither of you two, will be hurt…" A quick, casual stroke of the large shuriken strapped onto his back gave the other two an indication of what would happen.

"No Naruto! Don't give him the scroll! Run!"

"Well come on Nine tails! What are you waiting for?"

After seeing no movement from the boy to hand the scroll over to him, he unstrung one of the large shuriken.

"Well have it your way then!"

Naruto could only watch as it swung towards him through the air, his mind caught by Mizuki's words. One of the Chuunin who he thought he could trust, one who had acted so friendly towards him, had just given him the same hateful look as the other villagers, the same hateful words. He was hardly aware of the danger rapidly approaching him, until it struck, and a stream of blood dripped down to the forest floor.

"Iruka-sensei?"

His teacher was kneeling before him, the shuriken embedded into his back. But there was no hate in his expression, or regret. Only a sad smile.

"Run Naruto. Run while you can. Go back to the Hokage. He'll believe what you say." He whispered to the boy, before collapsing.

A stony silence followed, broken by the maniacal laughter of Mizuki.

"HAHAHAHA! He really sacrificed himself to save a demon like you! What a waste! But don't worry…" He reached for the second shuriken.

"You'll be following him!"

Naruto's body began trembling uncontrollably, twitching as he stood there, shock slowly turning to anger. The traitor Chuunin mistook this to be a sign of fear.

"You should be afraid… Even a demon like you would be scared, when confined to a pathetic body like that." He drew back his arm, preparing to throw the metal weapon, when a roar stopped him in his tracks, and then threw him backwards as a surge of chakra followed.

Naruto stood in the centre of the chakra surge, a fox like cloak of the energy surrounding his body, with a single tail slowly forming.

"If you ever touch my sensei again…" he said in a shaking voice, filled with barely suppressed rage.

"I'll kill you!"

Another pulse of chakra shot out, again knocking Mizuki off his feet.

"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Instantly, over a thousand shadow clones popped into existence, each sporting the same chakra fox outline as the original, and each just as ready to attack.

"Time for you to pay!"

They all rushed forward, pounding the silver-haired man until he was half buried into the ground, clearly unconscious, but with more than a few noticeably broken bones. At last, satisfied that he had done enough, he dismissed the clones, eyes returning to their normal colour, and the rapidly swirling chakra around him disappearing.

'_I did it… I learnt the multi shadow clone jutsu…' _This was his last thought before he suddenly collapsed next to his teacher, the use of his bloodline ability taking its toll on his body.

When he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by white walls, partially covered by a thin blanket.

'_The hospital?'_ he thought blearily.

'_How'd I end up in here?'_

He tried to sit up, but found that he lacked the strength to do so. It was as if all his chakra had been sucked out of his body.

'_Wait… Iruka-sensei!'_

He tried once again, and this time managed to push himself into an upright sitting position, before practically folding forwards as his weakened stomach muscles failed to hold his upper body. Having never been one to give up, he simply gritted his teeth, gripping the side rail on the hospital bed for support, before finally managing to pull himself off the side, and stand, although somewhat shakily. Leaning against one of the walls, he made his way towards the door, then across the hallways to the front desk of the building.

"Excuse me…" he said weakly to the medic-nin sitting there, who jerked backwards in shock, before attempting to guide him back to his room.

"Can you show me to Iruka-sensei's room?"

He received a nod in return, and the next thing he was consciously aware of was his body being carried towards a different room, a door being opened, and then being placed down on the spare bed.

'_Huh…? Isn't this the part where I usually have to argue with them or go find Iruka myself? And don't they usually put those sedative thingies on me?'_

"Thanks…" he said, a little confused. What surprised him even more was the slight smile he got back, before the medic-nin walked outside and closed the door.

'_No weird looks or glares? What happened while I was out?'_

A voice, almost as weak as his own, broke his train of thought.

"Naruto?"

"Iruka-sensei!"

*******  
_'Where is he?'_

Hinata stared blankly at the spot next to her, where Naruto usually sat.

'_Did something happen to him?'_

A different Chuunin was taking them for class, one who had quickly mentioned that their normal teacher had been involved in an incident the previous night, not bothering to clarify, before reading the contents of the lesson out of a book. That on its own had been a cause for worry, but when the boy she fancied didn't turn up either, her mind began drifting to what she'd seen the previous night. All of the ninja in the village of Chuunin rank or above, grouping at the Hokage's building…

'_Please be safe Naruto…'_

She gave the empty seat beside her another glance, before finally turning back to the front and listening to what the fill-in teacher was saying.

******  
"I can explain sensei, Mizuki tricked me! He said that if I learnt a jutsu from the scroll before you found me I could pass and become a genin!"

"I understand. The Hokage had one of our best interrogating Ninja force the story out of Mizuki." Iruka paused, smiling slightly at the thought of Ibiki 'extracting' the information.

"You've been raised to trust your instructors, and you simply listened to one of them. You didn't do anything wrong, so you won't be in any sort of trouble, don't worry."

Seeing the boy's tense face relax and break out into a grin, he continued.

"But there's still something that has to be done…"

He reached over to the small table beside the bed, and picked up something, a dark blue material trailing down from either side of his hand.

"You've demonstrated the perfect use of a clone jutsu, and not just the standard one either. The Multi Shadow Clone jutsu is a forbidden one, because the person who uses it usually dies from complete chakra exhaustion. But you… you're special case allows you to perform it without any issues! The fact that you managed to master it is more than enough to make you a genin. Congratulations Naruto!"

Not hearing the expected cry of joy, he leaned forward with a look of concern.

"Naruto?"

But any doubts regarding the boy's mood were instantly disappated as he leapt forward, embracing the Chuunin teacher.

"Thank you Iruka-sensei! Thank you! You're not going to regret this!" shouted Naruto, before jumping out the window, his energy somehow restored, muscles no longer tiring or weak.

'_This calls for a celebration at Ichiraku's!' _he thought happily.

Back in the hospital room, Iruka winced at the remnant pain in his back.

"That boy… I'll have to tell him to calm down a bit… Not everyone recovers quite as quickly as he does… Did he really have to hug me that tightly?"

Sighing, he lay back down, smiling to himself, hoping to catch some nice sleep to help his body recover. This was somehow destined to be denied to him, as the hyperactive boy crashed through the door to his room a few seconds later.

"Um… sensei? How come all the people in the hospital are being so nice to me? One of then even smiled at me before!"

The Chuunin let out a chuckle at Naruto's antics, finding it a little amusing for somebody to be confused at a kind gesture, although he supposed in Naruto's case it was to be expected.

"Well… Not everybody knows what happened in the forest with Mizuki, the Hokage told the villagers that Mizuki had to be detained for attempting to betray the village, but didn't go into specifics. But the people who do know, especially the medic-nin around here who had to heal you… Lets just say that you've earnt a bit of respect… you know… having protected the village's most powerful jutsu and all…"

No verbal response was heard, only a rush of wind from the open window, followed by a shout a few seconds later.

"Yep! This definitely calls for congratulatory ramen! I'm even closer to becoming Hokage now! Then it won't just be the medic-nin, but everybody who respects me!"

********  
_'Hehe… I managed to learn a heaps awesome jutsu, and I still graduate with Hinata! And there's one section of the village out there who doesn't hate me! This couldn't have turned out any better! Now… just to find Hinata and tell her the good news…'_

He stopped his rush across the roof and looked around from his vantage point.

'_Um… Which way's her home again?'_

He looked a little longer, but still not finding any specific landmarks to help him locate the Hyuuga area of the Leaf village.

'_Aww… Well I'll just have to surprise her and tell her tomorrow!'_

He turned and began leaping from rooftop to rooftop, towards his small little apartment, intent on getting some rest after the extreme events which had transpired in the last 36 hours.

**I know that the time between updates is getting longer, but unfortunately, it may continue to do so, school is way busier than I'd expected :\. But don't worry, whilst at some points in the year I may put the story on hold, I have no intentions of discontinuing it.**

**Review please :)**


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